A Million Ways to Send Me to Hell
by BilliMonroe
Summary: Bonnie is falling deeper into the realm of grief, and she is having a hard time remembering that she is one of the good guys. Dean can certainly understand the feeling. It's been months since Sam's vanished, and she makes him want to raise some hell.
1. Radar

Bonnie's POV

Mystic Falls has a way of killing any semblance of happiness that lies within. Trust me on this. And if you still don't believe me at the end of this tale, then the next round's on me.

It was the second semester of my junior year in high school. Don't ask me about the first one, because honestly, you wouldn't believe me. Anyway, my two best friends, Elena and Caroline, and I sat in at the Mystic Grill, our town's only real reason for existing, and caught up on all of the things that we had missed. And there had been a lot. For instance, there was the car accident that Caroline had been in just a few months before. As usual, Matt and Tyler were arguing. No one was paying attention to the road, and then BAM! They crashed. Oddly enough, Caroline didn't show signs of injury until after she had stepped out of the car. But once she passed out, it was pretty clear that there was not one, but two wounded parties. She had recovered from her brief coma in no time, but her memory still came and went. I envied her.

I envied her ability to fall asleep completely ignorant to the night's unforgiving fury. I envied the way that, shallow and insecure as she was, she had no real reason to hate anyone. She hadn't spent weeks after her grandmother's death crying black and purple tears that never seemed to dry because there was nothing else that she could do. No spell. No bargain. Not a single damn thing could bring Grams back, and it tore her to pieces daily. She didn't finally run out of tears, only to find herself empty inside and pissed at the world for going on with its life when her grandmother never would. She hadn't avoided her friends using that "I have to plan the funeral" excuse weeks after her grandmother had been placed into the cold, hard ground, her own soul growing even colder and harder, and toying with a sweeter kind of darkness that enticed her and made Damon look about as dangerous as a spoiled two-year old.

She hadn't come back to school greeted by pitying eyes that quickly turned unforgiving when she rightfully found someone to blame in the Salvatore brothers, and consequently her best friend too. Sticks and stones may have broken my bones, but their whispers came back to hurt me.

No, she didn't know about the vampire killing device, Katherine, Elena's revelation about her vampire mother, or the fire that had almost killed me, and half the town—the supernatural part that is—, and the one thing Elena and I had agreed upon was that we would keep it that way. So we decided that this little outing would be all about catching up on our friendship. The sisterhood.

"So," said Caroline, "What gossip did I miss, while I was away?" Away. She made it seem like she had been vacationing in Cabo. This is why we loved her. She hated talking about unpleasant things almost as much as Elena and I hated living through them.

Elena and I looked at each other and simultaneously said,"Nothing much."

"You guys are always leaving me out! I swear sometimes, it feels like I'm the ugly stepsister, always competing against the beauty and the bi—"

"Bonnie, and I aren't keeping anything from you Caroline. It's just that, well…"

"Well what?" She looked from me to Elena and back to me, but neither one of us could figure out a way to tell her that we had barely spoken since her accident without arousing suspicion. And to tell the truth, Elena had been acting very strange lately. Kissing Damon one minute, and then acting head over heels in love with Stephen the next. I even saw her make a pass at Matt once, but I sure as hell was not going to tell Caroline that. Plus, Elena didn't even know that I had been spying on her these past few weeks, and I didn't want our first confrontation to be in front of Caroline_._

"We've just had so much going on at school that there hasn't been much time for gossip." Caroline didn't look satisfied, and I knew that she didn't fully believe my explanation, but Matt was working tonight, and she hadn't seen him since she had been released from the hospital yesterday.

He made his way over to our table and Elena and I stifled a giggle as Caroline tried, and comically failed, to inconspicuously push her already low cut top further down.

Matt was just ending his shift for the night and decided to slide next to Caroline and help her finish her stale fries and congealing burger.

"So, what are you girls up to?" He asked taking a sip of her diet cola and making a face.

"No, no, no, Matt! This is Ladies Night! No boys allowed!" She tried to stand her ground against the adorable dirty blond, but everyone could tell that she loved the attention.

Matt had visited Caroline everyday that she was in the hospital, from the first day that she was admitted, until the last night of her stay. He was the first face that she saw when she had come out of her coma, and he even helped her mom out by taking her home when she was released. Caroline complained a lot about how her bad luck had landed her in the hospital with head trauma, but even she couldn't deny that, underneath all of the Why-Me's, the crash had strengthened their relationship.

"But I haven't seen you since you were released," he snuggled closer to her, and then dropped his voice a couple of pitches, "and you should really be in bed."

"Why?" Caroline asked, ignoring the fake gagging sounds that Elena was making. "Are you offering to tuck me in?"

"So what if I am?" _Oh Hell! _I thought,_ Why don't you two just dry hump on the table and get it over with? _Though I suppose that they were a cute couple. You know, if you disregarded the hot and heavy make-out with which they were currently privileging us; Matt because he was just hard up, and Caroline because, even though she was fairly certain that her relationship with Matt was safe, she still couldn't resist marking her territory where Elena was concerned.

"Come on, you two. Get a room." Elena laugheduproariously, causing me to join her. She and I had been poking each other in the side ever since Matt had sat down, in the attempt to stop the other from laughing or otherwise embarrassing Caroline. But as you can see, we'd failed.

"We'll get right on that," Matt said to Elena while showering Caroline with his Do Me eyes. She was thrilled, and Elena and I both knew that the price for practically ignoring Elena for Caroline was high, and his compensation began and ended with Caroline herself. Oh yes! He would definitely be getting some tonight.

After the couple left, Elena and I commented on how funny they were, and how satisfied that she was now that Caroline had stopped being so jealous of her. To anyone else, this statement might have sounded conceited, but it was the truth. So, boys liked Elena! Nothing was new, but she didn't let it get to her head. Plus, she was happy with Stephen. Or at least, this is what I had always thought. Now, I didn't know what to believe. I wanted so badly to cast a truth spell on the girl, but I had been trying hard not to use my powers. It was getting tougher not to use them for evil, though fighting evil with evil wasn't that much of a crime in my book. And evil, felt _good_. Oh God! I was starting to sound like a Salvatore. Ugh, speaking of which, one of the walking blood bags started to approach us. Well, you know what they say,"Speak of the Devil, and he doth appear."

"Hello, Bonnie." I gave a tight smile. Hey, I had come a long way, but I still couldn't pretend that I liked Stephen. Elena would have seen right through me anyway.

"Stephen, what are you doing here? I told you that I was having a Girls' Night?" Elena said, saving me the agony of being cordial.

"I know, and I'm sorry. I just thought that since Damon was gone for the weekend, you and I could…" he trailed off and Elena turned to me. I could tell that she wanted badly to leave, but wouldn't do so unless I gave her the okay. So I dismissed her. What was I supposed to do? Make her choose? That was the reason that I had started avoiding her in the first place. I didn't want her to have to choose between me and the boy that she loved. Or the boy that she claimed to love but, well, _cheated on?_ I needed a drink. Fast!

I ordered a gin and tonic on the rocks, and sat there staring angrily at the liquor bottles behind the bar, using my powers to break each of them one by one, until vodka, beer, and scotch mixed into a honey golden river of glass dust. A slow smile crept over my lips, and I couldn't help the delicious feeling that came from being so bad. It was addicting. Suddenly, I understood bloodlust. Only, I wasn't thirsty for it in a literal since. I thirsted to feel it on my fingers, running down my palms in hot streams.

That's when he came in. He was a tall, dirty blond, modern-day James Dean with a deep raspy voice and green eyes that looked as if they had seen and done it all. He ordered a scotch and then fondled the drink in his large, and very capable hands. I couldn't help wondering just _what_ they were capable of.

Under the bar, our knees clicked, and I felt an overwhelming sense of emotions. Underneath that that bad-boy swagger and sexy smirk, not to mention, constant lust, there was an overwhelming sense of pain and loss. This cutie was angry at the world and wanted to take it out on someone. No, some_thing_. For some reason, I got the feeling that he hadn't just come to Mystic falls for its extensive history and southern hospitality. No, he had come in search of evil with a full arsenal set to stop it where it dwelled. A man after my own heart.

In another lifetime, he and I could have been great friends. But he had a million ways to send me to Hell. And that summer, he tried every single one of them.


	2. Hell's Bells

**A/N:** First off, I would like to thank **MinaFTW**, **InkShaper**, and **TheSouthernScribe **for your thoughtful reviews. You all are wonderful, and I am so sorry to have kept you all waiting, but my computer went out for about a week and a half, and my first week of grad school just started so things have been a bit hectic. Enough about me though. Let me get down to the real note. I am deeply apologetic about all of the gramatical and storyline errors in the first chapter. I posted it at about 4 am and was super tired. I thank you for not complaining about it, and I can assure you all that this chapter is better edited. Also, just for clarication, this story takes place four months after the season finale of both shows (and yes, I do realize that it was the high pitch of the vampire device that caused Tyler to crash and not his fighting with Matt. Again, it was late and I just really wanted to start this story). Lastly, each chapter will be named after a song that fits the time/style/and feeling of that show and it's character. So, if you like, you can listen to each song as you read the chapter.

**Disclaimer: **I wrote this story because, after looking in the Vampire Diaries/Supernatural category for a Bonnie/Dean fic, I was disappointed to find, or rather not find any stories on them. I think that they would be crazy amazing together, as they both have the same history: losing a family member to evil. Naturally, I own nothing, and although I do hope to find my own personal Dean Winchester one day, I'll settle for living vicariously through Bonnie for now. So, let's get on with it, shall we?

HELL'S BELLS

Dean's POV

She reminded me a lot of Cassie, and that was more than enough reason to stay away from this chick. She had the same thick, dark curls and caramel skin: soft looking and scented with a mixture of alcohol, incense, and some flowery shit that all girls seemed to love. She and Cassie even seemed to have the same deal going on: classy and smart, but laced with a bit of mystery at the same time. The only difference that I could see between this girl and Cassie was her green eyes.

_Ah, just what I needed, _I thought, _to be chased down by another one of my demons. _

It had been four years since I'd last seen Cassie, but I could still hear the promise that I'd made her, "I'll come back for you," echoing through that creepy ass house as if we were still standing there. We both saw through my lie; Cassie because she knew me better than most people ever would, and me because, out of all the things that I'd known to exist: angels, demons, vampires, witches… kept promises ain't ever been one.

Parents promise their children that monsters aren't real, but the evil dicks sure knew how to make my life a living shit storm of misery. And Lisa promised me that I would always be welcomed in her home, but gave me my walking papers as soon as Ben's father decided that he suddenly wanted back in. Hell, even Sammy couldn't be trusted. He swore that he could ice the Devil, and yet four and a half months later, all I had to remember him by was a shitty computer and a stubborn scar under my lip.

Then again, neither Cassie nor I should have been surprised. After all, lying is the Winchester way.

Still, I had done her a favor when I'd left her standing on that doorstep. She deserved a guy who could give her more than lonely nights and broken promises, and I would never be that guy. So why pretend? Some guys could live that white-picket-fence life. Others made sure that that life was never taken by evil. I used to be one of those others. Now, I was living in some lame ass town, trying to choke down Jack in front of a goddamn living case of déjà vu.

Our knees clicked together under the bar, and she smiled at me. "Rough night?"

"Something like that," I replied to the bottom of my glass . _More like rough 31 years!_ "What about you?"

"What about me?" she looked somewhat tipsy. Like she had just driven past Hazy, toward Faded, which was on the corner of Shit Faced and Plastered, and was intent upon enjoying the ride. Unfortunately for her, though, I was in no mood to play _Twenty Questions. _Unless it involved stripping.

"Rough night?"

She tipped her head back, swallowing the rest of her drink in one gulp, and then placed a piece of ice between her lips."Perhaps."

"Tough break," were the words that came from my mouth, but all that I could think about was the way that she'd looked chugging down that drink, and how quickly she was snapping her fingers for a refill.

For someone so young and innocent looking, she sure was bossy. And let me just say that nothing turned me on more than a bossy woman who could hold her liquor. Except for maybe a naked woman who could hold her liquor.

"Why? She questioned around the ice. "Maybe I like it rough." _Is that so?_ I thought. Well then she was definitely talking to the right guy. Maybe Mystic Falls wasn't as dead as it had seemed.

Either my speechlessness had embarrassed her, or her own words finally registered themselves in her brain, because her green eyes got all big, and she stammered, "Oh my gosh! I cannot believe that I just said that. That's totally what I get for trying the Caroline approach," then seeing my confused look, she daintily placed her melting ice on a napkin, and extended her hand, "Hi, I'm Bonnie. Citizen of Mystic Falls and resident w—" She hesitated for a second before continuing, "welcoming committee. What's your name?"

"Sam Johnson," the answer came to me without hesitation. There was no real need to lie to her. She, like most people, didn't have a clue about the apocalypse or any of the evil shit that went down after the lights went out. I could picture this chick studying late at night in some dark library— there was no way that this town had internet connection— wearing one of those tight little school girl outfits with the short plaid skir—

"Hey. Earth to Sam. Did you hear me? I asked you what brought you to Mystic Falls." Bonnie waved her hand in front of my face, the motion causing her to wobble drunkly on her stool.

Her question, on the other hand, was a loaded one that made me think back to the days when AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" played on constant replay, and the Impala stayed loaded with an arsenal set to kill.

**-THEN-**

**As usual, Sammy had his nose under a paper, looking for our next hunt.**

**"Hey, Dean, check it out," he said, reaching, at his own risk, to turn the radio down, "It says here that Virginia born teenager, Vicki Donovan, disappeared last week after being previously hospitalized for animal attacks." He looked really proud of himself, and I hated to be the one to burst his bubble, but we had real problems.**

**"Good to know Ace Ventura. Now how long do you think we have until our little showdown with the Devil?"**

**"Dean," he said in that huffy voice that he always got when I dismissed his pansy crap, "don't you think it's a little coincidental that some teenage girl goes missing directly after we open the last seal and free all of Hell?"**

**I wanted so badly to remind him that it was his banging and drinking from a lying demon bitch that rang Hell's Bells, but I settled on, "No. Should I?" _I knew that letting him get that newspaper at the diner just outside of Richmond was a bad idea._**

**"Considering that Mystic Falls is like the epicenter of all vampiric/supernatural activity, I'd say yeah. Haven't you heard any of the lore?"**

**"No, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me," I answered because this was never going to end until I listened to his damn story.**

**He sighed like he was doing himself some great disservice, but he wasn't fooling anyone. He lived for this stuff. Nerd.**

**"Local legend states that back in 1864, a man named Giuseppe Salvatore went on a crusade against all the vampires in Mystic Falls, including his sons' girlfriend, and trapped them in a tomb."**

**"Wait, so both brothers were screwing the same chick? Talk about keeping it all in the family."**

**"Yeah, well, it gets even better. The girl was pumping both brothers with her blood. Somehow, Guiseppe got suspicious and put a chemical called Vervain into his youngest son's food."**

**"Vervain?"**

**"It's a chemical that subdues vampires. Sorta like what kryptonite did to Superman." First vampire lore, and now comic books. Could he have been anymore gay?**

**"So the next time vamp chick goes in for a bite, she gets a mouthful of poison. Nice."**

**"Yeah, uh, anyway, this tipped the father off that there were vampires in Mystic Falls, and he set out to capture them in the tomb."**

**"Even the brothers?" I couldn't believe that I was actually getting interested in this stupid story.**

**"No one knows if they were ever turned. So they may be dead by now."**

**"Good to know, Mr. Ripley. So what's the point?"**

**"Hungry vampires were locked in a tomb for over a century. We unleash every demon ever made, and then a girl goes missing after claiming to have been mauled. You don't think that that's even a little worth our time?"**

**"I'll tell you what I don't think is worth our time. Getting all hot and bothered just because two dumb asses in the 1800s decided to bump uglies with the same whore and then got all hopped up on her blood." And there it was. The elephant in the room, or rather, back seat, that we had both been trying to pretend didn't exist. He knew that I still blamed him for the whole Lilith/Ruby thing, and it was killing both of us.**

**The rational side of me knew that it was his grief over my death that had sent him into her arms. He had always tried to hide the fact that acid literally coursed through his veins, and everyone could see, Bobby and dad, and I anyway, that he fought desperately not to give into what burned inside of him. If this were a movie, he would be the fantasy of every thirteen year old girl with a Twilight complex. The reluctant hero who hides behind normality while painfully fiending for the taste of blood. But this wasn't a movie, and his nobility wasn't even getting him laid, just more and more depressed.**

**However, our lives hadn't been rational in a long time, and the bigger part of me was disappointed to point of being disgusted that he didn't try harder to fight it. Grief or no grief. After all, I had lost him, and I wasn't sucking some devil bitch off. _Yeah, you just make deals with them instead, _a voice inside of me argued. That elephant was a monster than I had created out of guilt. If I hadn't made that deal with the Crossroads Demon to bring him back, Sammy wouldn't have lost it the way that he had. Never did I regret my decision to save him, but sometimes I feared that he would have preferred it if I hadn't.**

**"Look, I didn't mean—" I started to say, but he looked over at the window.**

**"Yeah, I know. Forget it," and with that, he turned the radio back up.**

**-NOW-**

"Just need a quiet place to escape." I finally answered Bonnie.

"So you picked Mystic Falls? Wow! We don't usually get outsiders coming into town. Unless they're fifteen year olds who've heard about the vampire myths and are looking for a bloodsucker of their very own." Her eyes darkened to a murky hazel and she bitterly downed another glass of gin as quickly as her first.

"Something tells me that you're not one of those girls." She shook her head, making both me and those curls go wild. "Why not? Don't believe in that sort of thing."

"It's not a matter of belief, Sam. Consider it more a matter of principle. Girls around here go gaga for a pair fangs, but would you let a tick feed off of you? No. You know why? Because ticks are parasites. And there is _nothing_," she said matter of factly, "sexy about a murderous, disease-ridden parasite." She was now working on her third drink, and it was showing in the way that her words started to slur. Clearly she was a light drinker, but I was wrong earlier. There _was _something sexier than a woman with a heavy thirst for alcohol, and that was one with such an extreme hatred for monsters. However real or fake she thought them to be.

"This all must sound so strange," she smiled, the sourness gone from her lips. Her eyes remained dull though.

"Trust me, sister, 'strange' is a vast improvement for me." She didn't need to know this, of course, but I had literally been to Hell and back. If all I had to worry about in Mystic Falls were strange stories, then I had it made. But in the back of my mind, Sam's story reverberated through my brain. Plus, this chick's disgust in vampires wasn't just due to their overexposure. She hated them for a reason.

It was while I was thinking over her statement, that I noticed her eyes zone in on someone behind me. They narrowed at a pale, dark hair man wearing a black leather jacket. He smirked at her, and winked in my direction. I didn't like the way that he was looking at her, but before I had the chance to confront the smug son of a bitch, a tall, tanned girl with long dark hair walked into the bar and over to Bonnie's antagonist. She wore a short black dress made out of some sort of lace, a snug leather jacket, and black boots that stopped at the knees of her mile long legs. _Damn, I definitely need to stick around this town._

Bonnie and I watched as the Megan Fox look alike walked over to Leather Jacket and went in to kiss him. He turned his face away from her mouth and I turned away from them. I had no time for Lifestyles of the Dark and Gothic. Bonnie remained transfixed, and from her glass, I could see the couple's reflection. They were having some kind of quiet argument that ended with her putting her hand on his thigh, near his crotch. In one swift motion, he grabbed the girl's head, forgetting his previous displeasure, and dragged her mouth to his. Bonnie stared at the teenagers with her mouth frozen in a wide O. The windows began to shake.

Meanwhile, they had moved onto trying to undress each other in the booth. The place had cleared considerably throughout the night, and now, the bartender, who hadn't had any other customers for an hour, was making his way over to the gyrating twosome.

"Will you two please get the hell out of here?" He spoke loudly enough for his voice to carry to over to the bar.

"Sorry," the girl said, turning her large eyes onto the bartender. His back stiffened at her gaze, "Forget that we were ever here." I turned backward to see what he was going to do next, but the couple was gone. The window shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

"I have to go!" Bonnie hurriedly whispered through gritted teeth. She seemed completely sober now, but the sway in her step told me that she was still a little weak from all of the alcohol in her system. "Welcome to Mystic Falls."

I wanted to drive her home. Hell, I wanted to take her home. But she looked both panicky and pissed at the same time. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, I had already gone this route, and nothing good ever came from reliving the past.

Because that's all that I had taken the brunette to be. Another cruel reminder of the road so far.

But she was more than just a nice rack that looked like a younger version of my first love. She was trouble.


	3. Fighter

**A/N: **You guys are all too amazing. Really, judging by the success of my other stories, I didn't expect to receive any reviews for A Million Ways, but you all have proved me wrong. That means so much to me.** MinaFTW****, **I love how involved you are in the Elena/Stefan storyline (Please don't kill me at the end of this chapter. Just trust me.)** cwluvr, **S&T started off really interesting. I couln't resist reading starting it.And **TheSouthernScribe, **remember to keep that seat belt nice and tight. You're going to need it! ) This was a really hard chapter for me to write, because I wanted to give you just enough information to make your own assumptions (and yes, I will admit that I am somewhat fishing for reviews here, lol.), but not give away so much that you become bored with this fic and move on. I hope that I met and/or exceeded your expectations, or at least kept your interest.

**Disclaimer: **Yes, yes, yes, you already know that I own nothing but a love of both shows and a vivid imagination. So let's get own with it, shall we? **Read and Review!**

FIGHTER

Bonnie's POV

Let me just start by saying that I was usually more cautious than this. I did not go making impulsive decisions based off of whatever emotion that I was momentarily feeling. Everything that I did, from the clothes that I wore, to the practice of my craft was measured and weighed by a long list of pros and cons. Elena and Caroline had regrets. Matt and Tyler had regrets. Stefan and Damon were regret in (in)human form. I, on the other hand, had always made sure to choose both my words and my actions with care, because I never wanted to look back and say, "if only I hadn't…" Then, Grams died as result of my recklessness, and with her, so did nearly eighteen years of careful consideration. Now, all of my merits were replaced by one colossal mistake, and all that I could say was, "if only…"

But the thing is, before my world shut down, I was on top of it. Back at the tomb, power had surged through my every pore, and threatened to set me aflame. I had never felt such intensity, such undeniable strength, and I wanted nothing more than to feel that way again. It was what I imagined an addiction to feel like; constantly searching for ultimate euphoria no matter what the cost, which would never be too high, given that I no longer had anything to lose.

So this was how I spent my nights: stalking through the darkest recesses of the woods, searching for any reason to kill. Most of the time, I would slip up on some sloppy vampire who had escaped from the tomb and slaughter him just before he landed into the back seat of some unsuspecting couple's car. The muscles in my face involuntarily curled themselves into a smile at the memory. It always ended the same way: with me in the bathroom, peeling my blood soaked clothing off, and sinking myself into a scalding hot bath, comforted by the sounds of my prey's unearthly screams. But even though revenge was satisfying, the power that I felt was never as strong as it had been that first night. _You know what they say, Bonnie, _the devil on my shoulder taunted, _nothing's ever as good as the first time. _Be that as it may, that fact didn't stop me from looking for the moment that would be. That's when I made the mistake of thinking back to Sam Johnson and the incredible sensation that flowed from his knee to mine. There was something different about him. His aura was surrounded by so much death and destruction, yet he had come out of the rubble a hero every time. It was clear that he had dedicated his life to two things: revenge and protecting the innocent. But, tonight was different for both of us. Tonight, he would be protected. And I? I was lucky enough to have found that reason to kill in the guise of my best friend and her boyfriend's brother. Their behavior at the Grill tonight convinced me that Elena was not in her right mind, and that Damon was to blame for her wild state. I didn't know what he had done to her, but thoughts of how Caroline had been during their brief relationship flashed through my head as I made my way through the forest and up the hill to the boarding house. And there was no doubt in my mind that blood had been spilled again.

"The deal is off!" I screamed from the open doorway of the Salvatore estate; saw dust covering every inch of the lavish parlor as a result of my telepathically incinerating the thick and ancient oak door just minutes before. The entire manor was dark and glittering with candles. Seriously, it looked like a cross between Dracula's castle and a mausoleum. _What can you expect from the walking dead? Especially one born before electricity was invented._ Anyone else would have taken one look at the seemingly empty house, noticed my reluctance at stepping inside, and the eerie silence that screamed louder than any disturbance ever could, and run back to the safety of her bed. But I couldn't leave. That's how far gone I was. Not to mention the fact that I happened to know a couple of secrets regarding the scene before me.

Take for example the deluge of candles that gaudily littered the room. Caroline was the romantic of our group. She believed that everything deserved a chance at a happy ending, and would stop at nothing to make sure that that ending was fit for a fairytale, _Gone with the Wind_ style dresses and all. But for Elena, that fairytale came in the form of a movie named _Sixteen Candles_. When we three, Elena, Caroline, and I, were younger, E's mother would turn on the 1984 film and recite all of the lines, verbatim. I could still hear Mrs. Gilbert playfully reprimanding us for poking fun at the "greatest love story ever made." There was one scene; however, that always shut us up, and that was the climactic birthday cake scene. Week after week, we would watch in utter envy as Molly Ringwald's character sat atop a dining room table in a hideous pink dress staring dreamily into the eyes of her true love, Jake Ryan, no parts of them touching, until their lips finally closed the distance. By this time, her mother would be in tears.

"That's how you know if a man truly loves you," she sobbed, "If he is thoughtful enough to do something this romantic for no reason at all." At the time, Elena and I had thought that perhaps Caroline was Mrs. Gilbert's real daughter, given that they both had such a flair for tradition and romance. But the point was not lost. This movie had sentimental value for Elena, and anyone who stuck around for more than a month knew it. Now, ten years later, in typical overzealous Stefan fashion, the manor was piled high with candles, all centered around a table onto which a single cupcake was placed. Red velvet. Of course!

I broke my vow to stay cemented to the porch and crossed the threshold. It wasn't the same for witches as it was for vampires. We could, like the rest of the breathing population, enter any domain that we pleased, with or without an invitation. However, pissed as I was at their entire race, and make no mistake about it, I was livid, I still believed that they had a right to privacy. The home was a sanctuary in my book, and as long as there was no immediate danger, all business could be tended to from the neutral territory of the porch. But now, all bets were off.

My heels clicked on the dark wooden floors and their steepness made me wish that I hadn't had that third gin and tonic. It was getting very hard to walk and my head was swimming with the first signs of a hangover. Still, no one came to greet me. Oh, but he knew that I was there. He could hear the steadiness of my heartbeat. Smell the stench of rage rolling off of my skin. The only thing that he didn't know about me was whether or not I carried a stake with his name on it. Or the fact that if I wanted him dead, there would be no need for a stake. Because nothing pliable would remain of him. Still, his rudeness did not deter me. I had come to deliver a message, and I was not leaving until I had done just that.

"Get down here, Stefan! You won't like it if I have to come up there." Moments later, I could hear footsteps on the winding staircase.

"Bonnie," said, pretending to be surprised, "is everything okay?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Stefan! Where the hell is she?"

"I'm sorry? What are you talking about?" He looked pained, but it was hard to tell if his agony was a direct result of his confusion or if that was just the normal cut of his face. Either way, I wasn't buying it.

"Unless, you want me to blow this entire house down, I suggest you tell me where Elena is Right. Now." The last two words were emphasized by the deadly sparks that flew from two of the candles closest to his head. Stefan jumped out of the way just before the embers hit his bare shoulders. I half expected Elena to come down the steps and demand to know what I was doing there. She never did.

"She went out to get ice. Bonnie, what's going on?" Instincts told me to get all of the facts—such as why Elena felt the need to purchase ice at three o'clock in the morning—before I continued with my mission, but seeing as how he had gone through all the trouble to plan such a romantic night, I didn't even want to think about where that ice would be going.

"You mentioned earlier that Damon was…" I looked around the manor trying to decide if saying his name was a smart idea. After all, I had used my last emergency vial of Vervain at the bar earlier, so I had no defense if the elder Salvatore caught me off guard, "away. When did he leave?"

"He…uh…well, um…he left earlier today. Said that he was going to visit some friend of his. What does this have to do with Elena?" His tone was one of concern, not contempt, but my gut told me that something wasn't right. Damon didn't have any friends, _except for Elena,_ my conscience told me, and Stefan knew better than anyone that his brother's feelings for her had been growing stronger and stronger since the tomb debacle. Feelings that Elena, though she tried to hide it, I suspected she heavily reciprocated. It couldn't have been easy for Stefan to see his brother slowly, or not so slowly, judging by the scene that I had witnessed earlier, stealing the love of his life away—again—, and it wouldn't have surprised me if he had resorted to compelling Elena and sharing her with him. Anything had to have been better than losing her completely.

"I warned you that if Damon did not change, if he spilled so much as one drop of innocent blood, I would take him down. You say that we are both protecting the people that we love, and I'd hate to make you choose, but Damon's clock has just stopped," he looked at me as if comprehension had finally dawned on him. Perhaps, he really was a victim of their infidelity. "So the question is, which of them do you want to save most?" I asked, "Damon or Elena?" His eyes travelled to the approaching figure behind me. Dark red veins materialized underneath those darkening green eyes in a display of total inner turmoil. For the second time that night, I cursed myself for using my last emergency vial.

Bracing myself for the fight that I knew was inevitable, I turned to face the paralyzing chill of those cold, ice blue eyes. Only it never came. Instead, a stunned Elena emerged empty handed through the gaping hole where a door should have been wearing a short, high collared trench coat, looked from me to Stefan, dumbfound expression settling on her features, and slowly said, "I'm sorry Stefan…"


	4. Mysteries and Mayhem

**A/N: **I am loving all of the reviews that I have been getting. **MinaFTW, **I knew that you were going to kill me, but please don't boycott this story just yet, I promise to explain everything in due time. Just bear with me. Oh, and **TheSouthernScribe, **you may just be willing to kill Elena after this chapter (if you haven't already figured out what's going on. Or got tired of waiting for an update and moved on to another story). Also, I want to thank **xc2010** and **KeaNote **for adding _A Million ways _to their story alerts. If you like this chapter, or even if you hate it, send me a review telling me what you think. This chapter was difficult, because keeping Dean's voice authentic is something that I am very concerned with, but it was fun (can something that is hard still be fun to play with? Wait, don't answer that!) I actually wrote Chapter 5 before this (so it should be up sometime before the U.S. TVD season 2 premiere on Thursday), because I had much more inspiration for that one than I did this chapter, so if you think that this one is crap, believe me, the next one will be better. So let's get on with it, shall we?

**Disclaimer:** If I really owned either of these shows/books, Damon and Dean would be in love with me instead of Katherine/Elena/Cassie/Lisa. Ha Ha.

MYSTERIES AND MAYHEM

Dean's POV

I never knew my way around one place for too long, but the one thing I did know my way around was a car: the older the better. That's how I found myself working for Mitch. Mitch was one of those ex bikers. Real bad ass types with the bald heads, long ZZ top beards, and a bleach blond girlfriend with a tattoo of the words "Mitch's Bitch" on her right tit. He reminded me a lot of Bobby with his "No Bullshit" personality, but working at Mitch's Motor Repair was the closest that Mystic Falls had ever come to feeling like home.

I still remembered the first day that I met Mitch. The Impala was sturdy, but she wasn't some young thing. She had some years on her. Some experience. And to this day, she's still the only sure thing in my life. So naturally, I wasn't letting her go. Not when she had seen everything, and if I closed my eyes real tight, I could almost feel Sammy sitting next to me on the cool interior. Smell all that was Dad in her paint. And as my only surviving link to both of them, I had to take care of her. So, I pulled the Impala into the auto shop and waited for someone to come out and give her a routine tune up. Usually, I did it myself, but I didn't have the equipment. See, I left Lisa's at midnight in a hurry, so I was stuck trusting my baby with a bunch of Harley riding screwheads in Hicksville USA.

"You do tune ups?" I asked to a heavily pierced kid in a grey jumpsuit. The teenager wore headphones that blasted some hard core, death metal crap. He didn't respond.

"Maybe you didn't hear me, but I asked you if you did tune ups?"

"I don't speak English" the kid answered in perfect English. This one was just begging for a fight, and after the night that I'd had, kicking his scrawny ass would have been a pleasure.

"Don't be such a dick wipe, Lucas," screamed a husky, southern female voice, "How can I help you, baby?" I focused my eyes on the busty blond woman in front of me who was old enough to have been my mother. Ten years from now. She wore a tight pink shirt that covered only enough to not get her arrested with tight blue jeans that showed off her pink thong when she bent over, which she did. A lot.

"I need a tune up," I said a little distracted by the way the woman was pressing her cans against my chest. Her hands started to wander as well and landed inside my back pockets.

"And how do you want that tune up? You want quick service?" she said, moving her hands around in little circles on my ass. "Or do you want something a little more detailed?"

"Uh…well…um," I stood there stuttering like a dumbass until Mitch came out and yelled,

"Misty Lou, get off the boy's jewels and go make yourself useful!" She pouted, but walked to the back of the shop anyway. To me he said, "Sorry about the Mrs. She's a bit frisky, ha! What can I help you with, son?"

I cleared my throat and asked again for a tune up. As soon as he saw her, he wrinkled his nose and looked at me like I had just said I wanted to skin cats on the hood. "For that old thing?" The pissed off look on my face only made him laugh harder, but he raised his hands in surrender, "Oh, don't get your panties all twisted. You've come to the right place. Luke! Pull those damn plugs out of your ears, and get started on…" I knew that he was waiting on me to give him a name.

"Sam Johnson"

"Sam Johnson's car needs fixin'."

"That's an understatement," the kid said.

"You disrespectful little shit!" Mitch popped Lucas on the back of his head. "You never say stuff like that in front of the customers no matter how shitty their cars are. Now grab a wrench and get to work." Lucas grumbled and swore under his breath, something about "lame ass Sheriff Forbes" and how if she spent more time "getting some" she wouldn't have time to assign so much community service. The angrier he got, the harder his work grew.

"Whoa! Whoa!" I jumped up from my seat, putting a copy of _Busty Asian Beauties_ back on the sticky, wooden coffee table, "you're stripping the goddamn metal!" I grabbed the wrench from his hands and began to show him how to care for her. "With a beauty like this, you can't just go ripping at her insides like you're jacking off. You have to stroke her gently." For a second, all he did was stare at me.

Then he threw the rag down from his twig-like shoulders, and said, "Man, screw this noise. I don't have to take this shit from nobody!" _Well that was rude!_ It wasn't like I had thought that the whole town would throw me a damned parade, but a little customer service would have been nice. It just went to show that if you wanted something done, you just had to do it yourself. And I finished her in ten minutes flat.

By the time that I was finished, Mitch stood in the doorway of the garage, licking mayonnaise off of his fingers, but missing the glob that had attached itself to his mustache like it was holding on for dear life.

"Nice job boy!" Sounds of clapping filled the air, making my bitch of a migraine pulsate with every crack of his hands. And pissing me off to no end.

"No thanks to any of you," I mumbled, "how much?"

"Nothing. If you throw on one of those jumpsuits and detail this one; 1964 Coupe de Ville. Pretty decent paycheck in it for you if you come back and do it every day." This type of situation was foreign to me: working for a legitimate paycheck, and actually being someplace long enough to need a paycheck. Not to mention that fact that he had let me lease the apartment above his shop. But again, I was out of the hunting business, which, despite its rigorous job description, it hadn't set me up well enough to retire. So taking the job a no brainer. And I've been working here for the last three weeks.

"Hey Sam,"Lucas leaned against the trunk of a 1969 AMC Rebel that I was working on, "those were some sick ass tunes that you told me about. Put 'em all on my iPod." He was smiling from ear to ear, all teeth and dimples, and looking a bit like Sammy did when he was fourteen. I didn't have the heart to tell him that AC/DC could only be fully appreciated on old radios, record players and cassette tapes.

"Yeah?" I asked him, tightening one of the car's bolts.

"Hell yeah! Got anymore?" Twenty-one days ago, this kid was a headache; another obstacle set to stomp on my last nerve. However, the longer that I worked here, I realized the reason why he had annoyed me so much. We were just alike. Physically, he reminded me of Sammy, and in some ways, he carried on his personality. The piercings and foul mouth were just ways to hide the fact that he was smarter than most people. His life had been a bowl of rotten cherries from the moment that he was born, and with the cards that he had been dealt, he really hadn't stood a chance thereafter. It was only a matter of time before he got arrested, and last month, the sheriff had taken him in on misdemeanor charges against computer hacking.

But in all actuality, he was really more like me. The reason that he had been hacking into that bank's intelligence system was so that he could find a way to transfer money into his mother's empty savings account. Some days, he would go without food, just so that his nine year old sister, Angie, wouldn't have to go to bed hungry, as their mother worked late nights as a um…dancer. The burden showed in the wear and tear of his sanity, but as far as I knew, he would have it no other way. Angie came first in his life, and that was that.

"Lot's more, but uh…shouldn't you be heading home to your sister?" The sun had set hours ago, and with so few buildings around, the sky was edging toward black.

"Mitch says I have to stay here until lockup." That didn't make much sense on Mitch's part considering that he didn't trust the boy as far as he could see him. "Besides, Angie is spending the night with one of her friends." So that's what his excuse had been about. He didn't want to be home alone. A tiny part of me wanted to tell him to man up. Sammy and I had been staying at home alone since we were six and two, and this kid couldn't manage to do so at the age of fourteen? But the world was an unsafe place, and maybe it would have been better for all those people that we had saved—and the unfortunate ones that we couldn't—if they had been a little more conscientious about what lurks in the dark.

"Well, if you're going to be here, mind wiping down the window shield?" Lucas grabbed the dirty rag that always adorned his shoulders and smiled as if I had just asked him to drive me us to a strip club. "So, she's sleeping at a friend's house, huh? Her friend wouldn't happen to have any older sisters would she?" He shook his head as if to say, "Don't you think I would have tried to tap that by now?"

"A young babysitter?" What was meant as humor came off as sounding a little like desperation, but hell, I was getting bored. The apartment upstairs was no better than the millions of second rate motels that I'd stayed in. The walls creaked, the faucet dripped relentlessly, and I was quite sure that the suspicious looking stains on the dirty brown carpet contained blood. Still, it was too quiet, and I was only seconds away from picking up some chick at a bar. Maybe a chick like the one from like last week. What was her name? Bianca? Brittany?

"Nope! She's an only child," Lucas cut into my thoughts. "Some little rich girl who's part of the founding families." He rolled his eyes at me in a you-know-what-I-mean kind of way, but in reality, I had no idea what he was talking about. "You do know about the founding families, don't you?"

"Should I?"

"If you want to live in this town then I'd say yeah." He sat in the front seat with the door open and set the background for his story, "Back in the 1840s a whole bunch of families settled into Mystic Falls and colonized the land. They were all rich, and some were even rumored to have come from wealthy families back in England, France, and Italy." This is what I missed, and boy I never thought that I would be nostalgic over a history lesson, but here I was again, revisiting the past. "Hey Sam, you okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Fumes just getting to me, 'ats all," I furiously attacked my eyes with the dirty rag, making Lucas stare at me even more worriedly. "So what's so good about them?"

"Well, many of their descendents still live here, and if you're born from one of them, you're pretty much considered royalty in this town." The tone of his voice was bitter, and although I didn't know anything about these families, I could see where he was coming from. Obviously, they weren't hurting for cash. More than likely, they all received new cars for their birthdays and other pointless crap that didn't matter to anyone outside of Mystic Falls.

"Are we the only one's not part of a founding family?"

He made a sucking sound with his teeth and thought about it for a second. "It's about even now, well, number-wise anyway. Let's see, there are the Forbes's the Gilberts, of course the Lockwoods, the Donovan's and," he was lost in thought for a second, "the Salvatores. I can't remember the rest." The Salvatores. Where had I heard that nam—

"Was there a man named Guiseppe Salvatore in this town?" I asked him.

"About a hundred and forty-five years ago? Why?" I filled him in on the story that Sammy had told me, leaving out, of course, my source.

"Yeah, they still live there. The Salvatore brothers." He waited for my reaction and was pleased by the way my eyes blinked rapidly.

"Naturally, they're not the same ones though, right?" It would be just my luck to retire in a place that probably could have benefited from a hunt more than any other town we'd, I mean I'd, visited.

"No one really knows, but I think that it's pretty damn ironic how people started dropping like flies soon after those brothers show up in town again. Animal attacks my ass!" Just then, a loud bang disrupted my train of thoughts.

"What the devil?" This whole story was making me alert, and generally, if there was more than one person in a town who believed something, there was a reason. I had only prayed a couple of times in my life, but the last time that I had had proved that God had either checked out, or just wasn't taking any requests. Either way, I was on my own and just seconds away from grabbing the blow torch.

"Relax Sam, it's probably just a cat. I'll check it out. I have to piss anyway." The boy slipped into the dark alley, and I had to hand it to him. He may have been a pansy when it came to staying at home, but aside from that, he definitely had a pair.

Out of nowhere, a female voice called out, "You're so cranky tonight. You'll feel much better when you eat something." Peering around in the darkness proved unsuccessful, but the feeling in my gut told me that something wasn't right.

"Maybe I'm cranky because the woman that I thought I had fallen in love with, is turning out to be a selfish, conniving bitch!" A man's voice called back to her. The direction of their voices was that of the alley, and they were getting closer.

"Don't blame me for your mood swings. You got what you wanted, now hurry up and eat, so that you can enjoy it." A low growl echoed off the metal dumpsters in the alley, which was followed by a loud—and sadly high pitched—scream.

"Luke!" I yelled, grabbing the blow torch and running like my ass had been lit on fire. The wind blew on my face, holding me back from what I feared lay ahead, and it felt as though I were going nowhere. Like it were one of those nightmares where the dreamer was trapped inside of a foggy hallway, running toward an unreachable door, while the evil came closer and closer.

Seconds later, I reached the alley, and raised the blow torch toward a figure dressed all in black. His eyes were as dark as the demons that I had fought, outlined by deep red veins. He stood there and rolled his eyes, Luke's blood dripping from his mouth in thick torrents. "Care to have dinner with us? The buffet is," he looked over at Luke, who was rolling around on the ground, holding his neck and trying to stop the blood flow, and smirked "to die for!" I was losing control. Starting to see red the way I always did before a hunt. Demons were the text book definition of evil, but in my experience, vampires were worse. Too cocky.

"You know what Twilight," I said, looking from the young Mick Jagger wanna-be to Luke, knowing that he would need to be taken care of soon, "why don't you eat this?" Two things happened next. First, the blow torch spit blue flames that caused the vampire to curse in pain. And secondly, two sharp fangs latched onto my neck.

I had been bitten by many things in my lifetime: mosquitoes, dogs, horny women, but never by a vampire. The weight had caused me to collapse beside Luke who was looking up at me with horror. There was a slurping/sucking sound on my throat, and I wondered how ironic it would be to have lived through being ripped apart by hellhounds, only to die, drained of blood, in virtually one piece. But as soon as the sucking started, the vampire flew away from me.

"He's like sucking on poison!" he yelled.

"What are you talking about?" the female voice was back.

"Ver-" he was struggling against the female now, "Vervain!" Her brown eyes opened wide, and stared at me for a brief second before they vanished, leaving me to struggle with both getting Luke up to my apartment so that I could wrap his neck and the question of how Vervain could have possibly gotten into my system.

It wasn't until later that night, as I was lying in bed that the answer came to me. "That chick from the bar slipped some into my drink!"


	5. Mistaken for Strangers

**A/N: **Again, I cannot stress how much I adore **MinaFTW **and **TheSouthernScribe** for voicing your interest in _A Million Ways_. Please, never stop! And a special thank you to **TheSouthernScribe** for putting me on your favorite author list. That literally made my day! Which is why I hope that I do not disappoint you all with this chapter. I had a lot of fun with this one, as it leads up to the real drama (and more specifically, a lot more Bonnie/Dean action). Also, thank you to **smallss27 **for adding me to your alert list. Feel free to come and say hello. That applies to anyone who took the time out to read this far. Now, I promised to have this up before the U.S. airing of The Vampire Diaries season 2 premiere, and here it is (with approximately 30 minutes to spare). I hope that you all enjoy it, and remember, alerts make me smile, but **REVIEWS DRIVE ME WILD!**

**Disclaimer: **Ha, as if! All I own are sleepless nights and incessant thoughts of how to end this story. So with that being said, let's get on with it shall we?

MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS

Bonnie's POV

"Suck it, Tyler! Now pay up!" Jeremy Gilbert said to Tyler as the latter gathered all of the pool balls together for a rematch of their game. Seeing the two of them play nicely still took some time at getting used to, but their banter had caused me to smile a little despite myself; something I hadn't been doing much of apparently, given how foreign the feeling felt on my lips. To tell the truth, I had been living like a recluse these days due to my behavior last week at the Salvatore estate.

I went to school, but only when I couldn't possibly miss anymore days without arousing suspicion. In class, I would scribble furiously in my notebooks so that teachers wouldn't call on me to actually speak. Then, there was the obvious question of what I was going to do with Elena. The answer to that question was nothing. I avoided her like the plague, dashing with impressive speed to my classes, and eating lunch at home, all to insure that we would have no time to talk about what had happened during our last conversation.

It was true that I had gone over to the boarding house in order to confront her and her bloodsucking, I mean, vampire boyfriends, but these days, answers just lead to more questions. And if I were being completely honest with myself, I was more than just a little freaked out by the turn of events.

-Then-

Elena emerged empty handed through the gaping hole where a door should have been wearing a short, high collared trench coat, looked from me to Stefan, dumbfound expression settling on her features, and slowly said, "I'm sorry Stefan. They were all out of ice. Bonnie what are you doing here? " Ice. Had she really gone for ice like he'd said? I looked down at her feet, covered in the same black ballet flats that she was wearing when she had left the Grill with Stefan. But where were the boots that she had been wearing when she'd left with Damon? And speaking of which, where _was_ Damon? What the hell was going on?

"I was just looking for you. I can't find my keys and I was hoping that you had grabbed both mine and yours by mistake." Her eyes lingered on mine for a second longer than I was comfortable with, but not in prying way. It was more like she was worried about me. Or, and I feared this possibility the most, like she had reverted back to her pre-Salvatore obsessed, best friend mind reading, practically familial way of being able to understand my feelings and motives without me having to say a word. But after the analysis, all she said was, "I could check my jeans upstairs if you'd like."

"Well, I'm in somewhat of a hurry, can you just take off your coat and check the pockets?" I knew that I was being a little pushy, but something was still a bit off. Stefan had claimed that Elena was out getting ice. A claim that she had confirmed. Yet I knew what I had seen an hour ago, and as much as Elena might have needed ice, cooling down was the last thing on her mind.

"Um…Bonnie," she whispered, blushing a little, "I'm not really wearing anything und—" It was completely unnecessary for her to have whispered. The only other person in the room besides us was Stefan, and aside from his superhuman hearing, I was quite sure that he was the reason for her present state. However, that was Elena for you, modest and reserved. Most of the time, anyway.

"Right," I interrupted, unable to stop my gaze from flickering toward Stefan. Those dark veins that had retreated, came back in full force and his eyes turned nearly black. I prayed that it was only because of the blood rising to her cheeks. At least while I was anywhere in the vicinity. "Of course! I'll just be…anywhere other than here."

"Bonnie, wait!" Stefan cautiously extended his hand and cupped it around my shoulder, "Are you sure that everything's alright? Is there any _other_ way that we can help you?" His consideration made me momentarily regretful of the way that I had treated him. Not that I trusted him anymore than usual, but for a moment, the fog had cleared from my eyes, and I could understand how enraptured in him someone could get. The pleading look, the never-ending compassion, it all screamed redemption. Genuine redemption. Still, those temporarily soft feeling did nothing to quell the visions of him feasting on Amber Bradley during the Miss Mystic Falls pageant.

"No, that won't be necessary. You two have a nice night."

I ran like hell, but not quickly enough to drown out Elena's cries, "Bonnie! Bonnie, wait!"

Now

Now, I sat twiddling my thumbs, trying to resist the urge to run away and never come back. Not even just from the Mystic Grill, but from Mystic Falls itself. Elena deserved an explanation though. All week, she had been filling my cell phone memory with texts that read, "r u ok?", "plz tlk 2 me," and the final straw that broke my resolve and forced me to sit in this secluded booth, "meet me at 7." I couldn't promise that she would accept what I had to say, but I knew that the time for confrontation would come, and here it was, threatening to blow down every wall that I had built as easily as if they were made of smoke.

"Yeah yeah, double or nothing!" Tyler retorted to Jeremy's request that he compensate him for losing their previous game. Then, he scooted closer to Jeremy and lowered his voice, "your twisted sister is here."

"Shit!" Jeremy swore loudly under his breath.

Tyler, on the other hand, blushed. He actually blushed, and said, "I have to go take a leak."

As far as siblings were concerned, the Gilbert siblings had been the closest. To this very day, they were the only family I knew that would actually stay home together on weekends, hosting family game nights. And enjoy it. They would stay up for hours, late into the night, popping popcorn and watching movies; the trail of endless inside jokes and riddles, forming a complicated labyrinth around all who lacked the Gilbert sibling sense of humor.

Then, their parents died, and Jeremy got lost inside of that labyrinth, locked inside a maze of drugs, sex, and Vicki Donovan. Suddenly, the light, carefree world in which they lived was hooded in thick black clouds; their hearts trying desperately to fill the void with Vicki and Stefan.

From that moment on, Elena treated her younger brother as though he had been born from her, revealing only enough to keep him concealed behind glass case as if he were a porcelain figurine. And as with anything confined too tightly, the sibling bond that had left so many Mystic Falls parents envious suffocated.

"Hey Jer, have you seen Bonnie anywhere?" He ignored her question and moved over to the bar. She followed his lead and took a seat in front of him. "Look, I know that you're still upset with me for the whole memory erasing thing. I get that, but you act like…like you hate me. You know that I'm only trying to protect you, right?"

He laughed a humorless laugh, "Then explain to me how trying to screw Tyler in the backseat of his car yesterday after school qualifies as you protecting me?" She looked as if she had been slapped by his accusation, and the whiplash left her speechless for a second, blinking back tears. "I didn't think so," Jeremy continued to chastise, "You're such a hypocrite you know that?" Her lips trembled as she opened them to defend herself, but he cut her off again, "You cast your nose up at Vicki every damn chance you got, just because she was a little…free, but now you're whoring yourself out to the whole town."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she whispered.

"I bet you don't!" he snapped at her and nodded in my direction. I pretended to look through my phone, determined to give them some semblance of privacy. "She's over there, pretending not to hear us. Oh, and tell your boyfriend that he doesn't have to threaten me for my disrespectful behavior anymore."

"When did Stef—"

"Damon," he corrected, "I guess I should have specified _which_ boyfriend." With that, Jeremy made his way back to Tyler and their rematch.

Silence sat between us, waiting for one of us to say something. Her eyes were cast downward toward the place where our stools touched at the bar, at which I decided to join her. Our knees lay close to each other in a way that reminded me of Sam.

On nights when running amuck tired me out much more than the sadness that had caused me to do so, social networking websites became my distraction: second only to trying to perfect Grams' acai and murumuru summoning potion. So many times, I would log into database after database under "visitor," searching through the millions of overweight, underweight, and otherwise average looking men named Sam Johnson. Some of them were young. Some of them had green eyes. But none of them were him, and by now, the memory of his face was starting to blur as if it were a picture victim to the effects of time and age.

"This was a bad idea," I stammered, collecting my things and getting ready to leave, "you have a lot on your mind. I'll see you later."

"Bonnie please," she cried, her voice cracking on the word "please," "I just found out that, in addition to hating me, my brother thinks I'm a slut."

I reached out and grabbed her hand, trying to comfort her with a transfer of compassion I wasn't completely certain that I still had. "He's just a kid who's been through a lot. Kids overreact."

"But you don't," her watery eyes fixed sternly on mine, making it impossible to break contact, "Of the seventeen years that I've known you, you've only lost control once." She squeezed my hand, courteously omitting the cause of my meltdown from the conversation. "When my parents died, I blamed every doctor in sight for not resuscitating them." I squeezed her hand back even tighter. It was a time that neither of us could forget, and I knew that my father, being one of the doctors on call that night, was number one on her list of negligent medical staff. "Matt had tried to console me. He tried to tell me that they could only do so much; they weren't miracle workers, but I knew that if the ambulance had arrived more quickly…if the doctors had continued working on them just a little longer…"

That same night, we sat at Gram's kitchen table, eating her homemade chicken noodle soup. I had never seen someone look so broken. "My parents didn't survive," she angrily choked out when my dad came into the room, ladling himself a helping of soup. Then, her eyes narrowed at me, "And I don't know long our friendship will either."

"You handled it the only way that you knew how." It was barely a whisper. Maybe it wasn't even directed at her. Even though I had understood when she called me on the last night of summer before school started, saying that it was really her anger at herself—at her needing to go to some party instead of staying at home during family night thus being the reason that her parents had gotten into that accident— that caused her to lash out at me, her anger at my dad had still hurt. Now, I was doing the same thing to her.

"Which is why I know how hard it is for you to be around Stefan," she explained. "You would never have stepped foot inside of the boarding house, unless you had absolutely _no_ other choice." I took a deep breath. It was now or never.

"Well," I wanted this to be like pulling off a band aid, but I knew that the pain would last well after the initial sting, "I've been, kinda spying on you lately."

Her eyebrows knit up and she smiled a confused smile. "You've been avoiding all of my calls, texts, and visits, just so that you could spy on me?"

"Actually, I've been observing you for about four months. Late at night, while you're with…"

"And just how much of me did you see?" She drawled suspiciously.

"Enough to make me worry." She had the decency to look offended, the way she normally would have, but that didn't make any sense given her recent antics. "What? You haven't been very discreet, Elena. Granted, there weren't very many people in here last week, but did you really have to attack Damon in a booth? Even the guy sitting next to me noticed."

"Damon? I wasn't with Damon last week." She was shaking her head now.

"E, this is me, here. You don't need to keep secrets with me. I won't be mad at you for finding him…" bile rose up in my throat, "attractive. I might have too if he weren't such a maniacal, murdering narcissist. But cheating on Stefan? Trying to seduce Tyler and Matt? That just isn't you." Her eyes got all big.

"Bonnie, what did you just say?" I repeated myself. "Oh God! He tried to tell me!" She was out of her stool in less than five seconds, dialing a number that, at this point, could have belonged to anyone.

"What are you talking about?"

"I can't explain that right now, just do me a favor and keep Jeremy away from…me. And slip some Vervain into his soda, will you?" I numbly nodded. My lips had grown as cold as ice, making it impossible to speak. How had I not guessed? She wrapped me up in a strong, desperate hug.

"And promise me that you won't do anything else, until I tell you to." I nodded again, returning the hug. But how could I keep that promise, knowing what I now knew? "Thanks! You smell good." Elena momentarily digressed, "He must have been some kind of guy."

Just then a deep, angry voice called, "You! You drugged me!" and heavy, urgent footsteps thudded over to the bar.

Acai summoning oil was permitted solely for the "object found dire," not the "object of one's desire." Using magic for personal gain was against all the rules. But in case I hadn't been clear, I no longer felt like following the rules.

"We'll see," I whispered back to her, feeling the devil inside of me shoot fire through my veins, "We will see."


	6. Hot Blooded

**A/N:** I have to thank the wonderful readers who have added me to their favorite/alert list. That means you **iamkagomeiloveinuyasha**, **Sygonia**, and **...** You guys mean the world to me. Well the world anyway. Ha ha. But come on guys. **Review!** It's motivational for me and helps me to give you all what you want. Even if it's to tell me that some of my writing is our of character. And I left my best thank you to Ms. **TheSouthernScribe**. You are perfection. Complete perfection! Even if you are the only one who reviews _A Million Ways,_ your reviews will still be enough to keep this story alive. Thank you for being so amazing during the writing of this story. Also, I have figured out how I want this story to end, and it's going to be sad. I'll warn you now. IT'S SAD! But depending on the amount of reviews that I get, I am thinking about writing a sequal either called _One in a Million _or _A Million to One. _So let me know.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. And the song that Bonnie sings is Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream," and no I don't own that either.

HOT BLOODED

Dean's POV

Green Eyes continued to hug some brunette by the bar, completely unphased by my accusation. Too bad she was the only one who wasn't affected by the outburst. Around me, time stopped, and all eyes froze on me.

"Oh, yeah, like you've never seen someone accuse someone else of poisoning them before," I yelled at the nosy audience. Who the hell cared what a bunch of hicks thought anyway? I had bigger problems.

A moment later, Green Eyes stood by herself, looking a little bit dazed, and a shit load pissed off. _Yeah, well she isn't the only one, _I thought as I met her by the bar.

"You poisoned me!" We were face to face now. Well, after I sat down on one of the high bar stools we were. She didn't look the least bit surprised that I was here, accusing her of trying to kill me. If I hadn't known better, which granted, at the time, I really hadn't, I would have thought that she had received those kinds of allegations all the time.

"Look, Sam, was it? I don't know what you're talking about, and I really don't have time for this, so—"This was classic. Really classic. She attempted to push past me, but I caught her arm.

"Well make time for it, because one minute, I'm souping up some guy's car, and the next minute I'm vampire meat. Only apparently, I'm more like mad cow meat, since he chewed me up and spat me out." One of those arched eyebrows went up.

"Okay," she said slowly, shaking her head like she didn't understand a word that I was saying. "What's your point?"

This was unbelievable! People were still staring at us like we were some kind of dysfunctional Jerry Springer couple, yet she couldn't have cared less.

The bartender stood behind the bar, drying glasses with a towel. He blended in with the rest of the teen and twenty-something crowd, and he must not have been all that familiar with chaos—oversexed vampire couple from last week aside, of course—because he kept eying a baseball bat in the corner.

"You'd better start singing, lady, because you're the only one who could have done it." She walked out of my grasp, straight for the exit. Johnny Bartender looked relieved that one half of our argument was finally leaving.

I followed her out to the sidewalk where she kept stealing glances at me, yet was completely content with the amount of danger that walking alone at night—and with a stranger, no less—warranted. In this part of the country, people left their doors unlocked, but none of them were daring enough to walk by themselves at night unless that person had a death wish. Or a weapon. With this one, the last choice was always the safest.

Finally, she rolled her eyes and spoke, "Fine, so maybe I accidently slipped some Vervain into your drink." Just like that. _Maybe I_ accidently_ slipped some Vervain into your drink! _She said it as if we were talking about spiking weak ass punch at the prom. "You're welcome!"

"Like hell I am!" She continued to stand in the shadows of the sidewalk. The wind picked up, blowing an empty condom wrapper and a Styrofoam cup past our feet. "I'm not thanking you for something I didn't even ask for." It was April, but the warm night air turned icy in a matter of seconds. Talk about going from zero to sixty, or in this case, going from about 85 to 32. Degrees. In sixty seconds. Green Eyes didn't seem to feel it though. She just stared ahead, her jaw set in angry determination.

"I saved your ass!" she yelled. The normally soft, somewhat husky voice turned harsh. And I expected the bartender to come outside swinging that bat of his—hey, it wouldn't have been the first time I'd gotten banned from a bar for disorderly behavior. But it would have been a first for me not to have the words "drunk and" follow it— followed by pissed off demands that we take this argument somewhere else.

Green eyes was taking deep breaths now. Lightning cracked. Loud thunder made her jump. Then, she blinked up at me as if she had finally regained her composure, and the thunder and lightning dissolved into a light drizzle. _Note to self: check out sudden weather patterns._

"Yeah, well, I didn't need your help!" I was yelling too now. If it was a war she wanted, then I would give her one. The drizzle turned to rain.

Her laugh was bitter. "And how exactly did you say that you found out there was Vervain in your blood?" She waited a second for an answer that she knew I'd never give. Because she already knew it. "Oh that's right! You were bitten. Looks like you had things completely under control." For the second time in a week, I was speechless. My only defense was to cross my arms and stalk over to my car. _Screw this chick! _"Does it ever weigh you down?" she called after me. There was laughter in her voice now.

Reluctantly, I turned around; for a second I actually thought that she that she was asking about my past: all of the hunting and memories of Sammy. If that had been what she meant, I was going to deck someone. I hadn't moved to Mystic Falls in search of peace just so I could ruin it by telling all of my bullshit problems to some hot, but seriously warped, stranger. "What?"

"The chip on your shoulder. Does it ever weigh you down? Or have you just grown so used to it that you don't even feel it anymore?" She crossed her arms against her chest like she was waiting for me to answer. I didn't like how much she reminded me of Bella just then. Bella was a sick, manipulative bitch. From the very beginning, she oozed her way into mine and Sammy's life like an STD by using cons and manipulation. Thought it was her goddamned right to be such a money hungry whore complete in the justification that she was just doing her job. Nothing more. Sad thing was, she was good at it. Her con, I mean. She pulled so many fast ones on us, it wasn't even funny. And had we not been obligated to protect, I would have let that ghost ship drown her from the inside out. What did I care?

Still, as heartless as she was, she made it seem fitting. On Green Eyes here, not so much. For one thing, she was good. Her execution was flawed, but slipping Vervain into my drink was something that she had done out of kindness. Not manipulation. And yet, here she was standing here like I owed her. Like she only did it for the accolades. Images of Bella's voice coming out of Cassie's mouth came to mind, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

By the time she spoke again, her voice was softer, nearly drowning inside of the rain that had picked during our silence, "I understand what it's like to sacrifice your own needs for the sake of saving others," I got in and started the engine. This was one conversation that was not going to happen. Not sober anyway. "But who's going to save you?" My foot halted before I could put the Impala in reverse. The girl's arms were hugging her sides like the coldness of the rain was finally getting to her. She was soaked.

"Get in," I gritted my teeth.

She blinked water out of her eyes, and answered, "What?"

"Well, do you want me to give you a ride, or not?" Normally, a girl like her would have backed away from the car; accused me of trying to get her into the sack. Probably because I normally would have been. But not Green eyes. All she did before opening the door and sliding in was smile suggestively. And I could have sworn that I'd seen her bite her lower lip just before the car door slammed shut.

She didn't smell anything like her, but that didn't stop me from thinking about Cassie. It had to have been more than ten years since she'd been in this car, but those late nights in the back seat felt like yesterday.

**-Then-**-

"Dean, stop. I really have to go." Cassie lay on the upholstered cushion and turned her head to the side, trying to keep my mouth away from her lips, but giving me full access to her neck. It was her only weakness, and Cassie wasn't a weak chick. In my 21 years, I had never seen someone with as much control as she had. She didn't do the things that normal college broads did. She didn't go to parties, get felt up by wasted frat punks, and end up having drunken sex with a different a lame ass football playing douchbag every week. No, my girl wanted to be a lawyer; saw it, not as a way out, but as a way up. Every night, she could be found with her nose in some book, professional law journals mostly and writing the first draft of her senior thesis. She was only a first semester freshman. Of course, this was only after she cooked dinner for her parents. Cassie was perfect, but she had a dirty side, and that side was begging for me to trail her neck with my tongue, completely ignoring her pleas for me to drive her home. Who was I to tell her no?

"Cassie, do we really have to do this tonight?" We both knew that she didn't really want to go home. We played this game every night. I would pick her up outside of the library at nine o' clock and park in some desolate part of town, where there was very little chance of us being caught. Funny thing was, I wanted to take her someplace nice. Someplace where they put flowers in the rooms and actually vacuumed the carpets. But Cassie, wouldn't hear of it. She liked the back seat. Said it made her feel dangerous.

After about an hour, she would chastise me for letting her go too far—_yeah, like I was going to stop her_—and whine for me to take her home, even though her fingers always grabbed for me to stay in place.

"Seriously," she said a little dizzily, "if I stay out any later, my dad will send out a search party." This was probably true. Her dad was a real tight ass, especially when it came to me. Had he known what his precious little girl was up to, when she wasn't at the library, he'd have probably shit a solid gold egg!

"Mmm, doesn't he think you're at the library?"

She laughed a little bit and said, "Dean, the library closed two hours ago," she slid her arm further down my shoulder so that I could see the time on her watch. 12:00am! For a second, neither one of us did anything but stare at the other. Then, she tightened her grip on my arm and finished, "but I guess I could just tell him that I was tutoring a friend…"

"You can start with me. How about Anatomy and Physiology?" The whisper caused her to shiver a little.

"You're such a bad influence on me," she said wrinkling her nose. It was cute how hard she tried to keep a straight face.

"Yeah, but you love it."

"No," she said pulling away from me. This time, her face was completely devoid of all humor, making me think that I had said something wrong; screwed something up somehow. Her fingers wound themselves into my hair so that I was forced to look down and meet her dark eyes. "I love you. There's a difference."

**-Now-**

"Acai berry with murumuru extract," Green Eyes said over the blast of the heater and Foreigner's "Hot Blooded". Her dark blue sweater lay in the back of the car, where she threw it, and the heater was blowing the scent of her hair around. I hadn't realized how far into her I'd leaning until she spoke.

"What?"

"My shampoo," she leaning into the heater so that her water drenched white tee shirt and tight blue jeans could dry. My hand tightened on the steering wheel. "It's acai berry with murumuru extract." Her left hand shot out and switched the radio station to some teenie bopper crap. The rain had let up the moment she'd gotten in the car, and I was starting to regret giving her a ride. No one touched my radio. No One. Not even Sammy was allowed to touch my radio. Not without receiving a serious ass kicking afterward. This car was a safe haven. A place where I could escape into the airwaves and bleed 1960s rock until life didn't suck so badly anymore. But maybe this music was her escape. Maybe she listened to stuff like this for the same reason I never listened to anything beyond 1975: it made her feel normal for a while.

She stared out the window, quietly singing,

"**I'ma get your heart racing in my skin tight jeans. **

**Be your teenaged dream tonight. **

**Let you put your hands on me in my skin tight jeans. **

**Be your teenaged dream tonight…" **

My knuckles ached from my grip on the steering wheel as I tried not to look down at her legs. I cleared the lump forming in my throat.

"So, how did you know I'd get attacked?" I asked.

"You live in Mystic Falls now. It was bound to happen sometime. Though I honestly didn't expect for it to happen so soon." Thankfully, she turned down the annoying yet kinda sexy—the way she sang it anyway—song and asked, "Where were you? You know, when it happened." I told her about my new job at Mitch's Motors, Lucas getting attacked, and Leather Jacket spitting out my Vervain laced blood.

"Can I see it?" she was already turning down the collar of my jacket, trying to get a glimpse of the bite.

"Are you always this aggressive?" I needed the joking back. I also needed to turn off the damn heater. Suddenly, I was soaked again, with sweat, feeling like a bomb ready to explode. And her fingers were matches on my skin. It was like I was a 12 year old virgin again, lying on the couch in that night's motel room with Kimmy Something-Or-Other.

She smiled a little and pointed for me to turn right at the street sign. "No," she answered, softly stroking the spot on my neck where Leather Jacket's fangs pierced my skin, "I'm not actually." She made another gesture with her right hand for me to stop the car.

Her house was small with tan siding and a ranch style porch, complete with swing. It was cute, and it fit her perfectly. Even down to the wind chimes. Her hand left my neck when she got out of the car, making it feel cold instantly. I rubbed it.

"Don't do that," she ordered from the open window, "you'll only make it worse. You should really put something on it."

"Will do, Green Eyes," I hadn't meant to call her that. Actually, I had hoped that maybe someone at the bar would have said her name. But here we were, at the end of the night, and I still didn't know what it was. She cocked her head to the side, hair now a wild mass of tight curls. Her eyes narrowed, but her lips curled up into a smirk.

"You don't remember my name, do you?" I gave her a sheepish grin that I hoped she would take as irresistible, and leave it at that. Hey, it had worked before. _On someone just like her_. She didn't disappoint. "It's Bonnie."

"I think I'll stick with Green Eyes." She challenged me for a second. Then she walked closer to the open window.

"My dad's on call all night and won't be back until noon tomorrow. Why don't you come inside, and let me put something on that wound." She didn't even wait for my answer before she walked ahead to unlock the door. She held the green door open and stepped inside, looking up at me expectantly.

"What? Do you have some kind of miraculous doctor's potion inside, or something like that?" The smirk on her mouth curled her lips up in a naughty way.

"Something like that."


	7. Secret

**A/N: **You guys are all too much. I am deeply flattered for the amount of alerts that _A Million Ways_ has been added to. **chantall214 **and **JClayton** I can't thank you enough for adding me. Also, thanks to **TheSouthernScribe** for requesting a sequel. It's already in the works darlin'. If you would like an early synopsis, just let me know. That goes for anyone else who wants an early synopsis of the sequel. **KeaNote**, you are my super reviewer today. I know that you were wanting to see more incorporation of each show's characters, so I hope that his chapter doesn't disappoint. Now, I just want to say that I somewhat ran out of ideas with this chapter, and even though I know how it's supposed to end (I even have a major Bonnie/Dean scene halfway written and it gets pretty intense), getting them there in a way that makes sense is proving to be hard. So I am sorry if the next update takes a while. And I am sorry if this one sucks. But bear with me, and feel free to send me a review. Perhaps they will help me tie up a few loose ends. So let's get on with it, shall we?

**Disclaimer:** I own Dean Winchester...every night in my dreams. Ha ha. Other than that. Not a chance.

SECRET

Bonnie's POV

My dreams of having a normal life: prom, graduation, college, marriage, and children vanished long before Sam and I met. If anything, he just sped up the process, and I fought the growing urge to cling to him, realizing that all we could ever be for one another was a replacement, filling a hole that was shaped for someone else.

The nights that we spent together at the garage in Mitch's Motors, sitting in the back of an old pickup truck—never his car, as the front seat held too many memories, and the backseat was, though he'd never admit it, was reserved for someone else—was solely about getting his mind off of the pain, and keeping me out of trouble.

The first week was when we talked the most. Our words, which were hurried and rarely unaccounted for, spoke tales of nothing.

"I used to work with my dad and brother, until the accident.  
"I know a little something about accidents, too."

But it was our silences that spoke the loudest. The averted eyes, the far away looks, and vague nods that were more like questions built a wall between us with a sign that read, "Secrets inside. Enter at your own risk." And there is only so much nonsense that two people can pretend to care about, much less _talk_ about.

The next week, we started playing poker.

"You a risk taker?" He grinned. I'd come to the dimly lit garage late one night only to find him already in the truck's bed. His steel toed boot was propped up on the bed's edge while he shuffled a deck of cards like a rebel from the 1950s, and I had no doubt that he could play the part to perfection.

"Depends on the risk," I answered just as mysteriously. "And the reward," I tried to climb in the truck with him, but my foot slipped and caused me to land in his lap. His hands seized my waist at the same time that my fingers gripped onto his bare forearms.

Holes opened up in the ground, spitting up an older man who resembled Sam only in his rugged exterior and taste in music and swallowing a taller man with longish brown hair in his place. Bruises. So many bruises left cuts just below Sam's skin giving the appearance that he's healed, when in all actuality, he's anything but. And there was the pain again. It fed on him like a cancer that ate happiness first, then spread to every other emotion until he was too weak to fight it any longer. I felt all of this when I fell into him, but none of the images made any more sense than usual. The only difference was that there were pictures this time, instead of mere sensations, and I had just absorbed them. He exhaled at the same time that I inhaled, and we sat there, faces an inch apart, in stunned silence.

"So, what business did you say that your family was in?" I asked for the millionth time.

He came down off our shared high a changed man. He was still secretive, "You ask me that every night, and I tell you the same thing," he leaned closer to my ear, if that was even possible— both of us momentarily forgetting that he was still holding me from falling further into his lap—so that I wouldn't miss his answer, "I'm not telling you about my past." But he was no longer as haunted by it. "Now can we get back to the game, Green Eyes?" He set me down in front of him and placed the deck of cards between us. "So," he said when he was finished. "Want to hear the stakes?" He grinned again, his face lighting up like a five year old, and I thought that he wore excitement well. Much better than despair.

"Sure. I'm feeling lucky." That was the last time, that I'd ever spoken those four words.

"So, who is he?" Caroline asked me in the school's courtyard during lunch. In the short months after Caroline had been released from the hospital, our tight nit group expanded from Elena, Caroline, and myself to Caroline, Matt, Tyler, half of the football team and the cheerleaders who frequently dated them, Jeremy, and me, the lone survivor. Elena spent her lunch periods at the boarding house.

In fact, at that very moment, Caroline sat in Matt's lap, accusing me of having "afterglow" while feeding Matt chocolate cake, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Caroline, I think you've taken one too many of those pain killers." But I couldn't stop the blush that rose to my cheeks. She was far from being correct about the nature of Sam's and my relationship, but I couldn't deny that something was going on. In my mind, what we had was perfectly innocent. We played card games in a rusty red pickup truck—this week, we had moved on to blackjack—talked about our likes and dislikes, and watched the stars until I couldn't possibly sit idly by and pretend that there wasn't a serious problem on our hands. But Caroline, didn't want to hear about opportunity. She was more of a carpe diem kind of girl, all about living in the now.

"No," Matt defended, moving his head away from yet another forkful of chocolate cake, "she's right, Bonnie. You're more relaxed than usual."

"He means less, of a tight ass," Tyler gave his unsolicited input.

"Ignore both of them," Caroline had switched from chocolate cake to carrots. Matt made a face and took it from her. I guess it was time for her feeding. "So, does he go here? Ooh, is he someone on the team?" This last question was whispered, supposedly for my sake, but completely unnecessary. Not to mention way off base.

Just then, Stefan walked across the courtyard to where we were all sitting. Alone. Immediately, the rest of the group stiffened. None of them really had any reason to dislike Stefan, but considering the fact that Matt and Tyler—mostly the latter actually— had initially tried to haze him, relations were naturally a bit strained.

"Bonnie, can I talk to you?" He asked me quietly. Normally, I wouldn't have given some excuse to excuse myself from his presence. I would have tried to be cordial and polite for Elena's sake. But knowing what I knew now made him the just the person I had most wanted to see. Well, second most.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you actually. Hey, I'll see you guys later." The cheerleaders and football players ignored my exit, intent on flirting with each other for the rest of the period. Caroline, Matt, Jeremy, and Tyler on the other hand stared back dumbly.

"Um…ok. But call me later. I want details about that hottie you're seeing." Three sets of eyes still burned holes through my back as Caroline looked around the group, realizing for the first time that someone was missing. "Does anyone know where Elena disappeared to?" If only they knew.

Stephen and I walked in silence. We had never been the closest, even in our most friendly times. But the silence wasn't awkward. It was one of contemplation. It wasn't until dead forest leaves crunched under our feet that Stefan finally spoke.

"Bonnie, a few weeks ago, when you…stopped by the boarding house to tell me about Elena, what…" his sentence trailed off. He looked much paler than usual and his lips struggled to form words. There were dark circles under his eyes that blended into his hollow, sunken cheeks. He looked more like the living dead than ever.

"Stefan, are you okay?" He didn't answer for a long time. And, as worried as I was for him in that moment, there was someone much more worthy of concern, and we couldn't afford to waste any time. "Stefan! There's something that you need to know about—"

"Does Elena seem…a little off to you, lately?" He scratched his head as if he were trying to dig through his scalp and put a finger on just _what _was different about Elena.

"Stefan," I took his hands out of his hair and gently placed them at his sides. If I had to rely on him, I preferred to do so while he was sane. This Stefan in front of me was not sane. He was tired. He was starved. But he wasn't sane.

"Please, don't make me regret this," I told him, hoping that my blood wouldn't have the same effect on him as did regular human blood. He looked horrified as I held my arm up to his mouth.

"B-Bonnie," he studdered, already holding my arm closer to his razor sharp teeth, even as his tried to protest.

"I know the risks Stefan, but there's an even bigger risk out there, and I need you fed if we're going to defeat it." Veins edged their way under his darkening irises. "I trust that you'll be able to stop."

"And if I can't?" he licked his lips. _How long had this been going on? _

"Never underestimate my trust, Stefan, because I don't dole it out without at least catching a glimpse of the outcome first." He seemed to take me at my word. Or perhaps, hunger just won out over hesitation, because the next thing I knew, a sharp pain crept up my arm and spread throughout my entire body. I sank to the ground, clutching a tree stump so that I wouldn't go into shock due to the amount of blood that he was taking. I could imagine that it was just like being offered a river after being stuck in a drought. Wouldn't you also try to drain it dry?

The pain was unbearable, his fangs drilling through bone, just to get to the blood. And as my life force quenched his thirst, the entire story, Elena, Katherine, and my quest to find her before it was too late flowed from my veins to him as well.

Slowly, his face regained its normal color and his chest stopped heaving so heavily. Still, he didn't take his fangs out of my skin; didn't stop the deep, involved slurps that he was taking. It was only then, that I realized with horror that, perhaps, my vision was wrong. I was so sure that Stefan would be able to find the strength not to drink too much of me, but hope was draining quicker than my own blood.

After what seemed like hours, the fangs retracted. Stefan's eyes stared back into my own blurred vision, and he slammed himself into a nearby tree. Gilt dripped from his face. Or maybe that was the remaining drops of my blood. At this point, I really couldn't focus well enough to tell. But I didn't have time to figure that out. Right now, I was having a hard time unscrewing a vial of my latest energy potion. Stefan, overcoming his mortification, rushed with inhuman speed to my side so that he could twist off the cap. The salty liquid flowed down my throat, coating my muscles and forcing my heart to pump fresh blood into my deprived veins. Hey, one never knew when a vampire attack was in her future, and as a witch, I chose to prepare myself. Better safe than sorry.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie," Stefan dusted leaves and dirty off of his pants, and I mirrored his actions. He was avoiding my gaze, feeling as though having his lips on me, for any reason, was a betrayal to his diet and Elena alike.

"She'll understand," I reassured him. _If we manage to get to her in time._

The sky darkened to a royal blue color as Stefan and I exited the woods, straight onto a dilapidated street. Buildings crumbled with age, and the sidewalks cracked underneath their weight. Even the air was dirtier. We had wandered into that part of town that lies in every city. A concrete jungle that hid the city's forgotten jewels in its cracks. And I knew it like the back of my hand.

"So, this whole time she's been here in Mystic Falls pretending to be E—" Stefan gestured wildly.

"It appears that way." Mitch's Motors loomed into view.

"Does Damon know? This is going to tear him completely apart." Damnit! Here I was risking life and limb, not to mention Elena's as well, telling about Katherine's colossal rouse on the town, and all he could think of was Damon. My blood started to boil.

"My best friend, your girlfriend mind you, is in danger, not to mention every human in Mystic Falls, and all that you're worried about is whether Damon gets his fragile heart broken again?" By this time, I was screaming; which is something that I usually do not entertain, but lately, keeping my composure was proving harder to do.

"This is Katherine that we are talking about. She will take Damon for a ride until the thrill of using him finally runs out of steam, and then she will crash him to the ground."

He was standing in front of my face, angrier than I had ever seen him before. Ordinary people would have found him intimidating. The smaller section of the population who knew what he was would have found him terrifying. I fit into neither of those categories.

"Then at least he'll go down a happy man!" _Calm down, Bonnie. Getting upset never solved anything,_ Grams's voice rang inside of my head, but the devil on my shoulder had other ideas, _Yeah, and look where all her positivity landed her. Remember, the only time quiet girls ever get attention is at their funerals._ My head hurt from all of the conflict. "Look, I know that you love him, but for right now, he's fine. Elena, on the other hand won't be if we don't get to her soon." He looked at me questioningly. "I had a vision of Elena and Katherine near the Falls," the Falls was the misty waterfall for which Mystic Falls was named. "I think that she's going to hurt her in the near future." We were right in front of Mitch's Motors now.

"Hey, Green Eyes," Sam called from the hood of a red convertible from the 1950s, "you're a bit early for our game, aren't ya?"

Stefan looked from Sam to me. "Is he talking to you?" I shook my head at him.

"Sam, will ya put please put a damn jumpsuit over that sleeveless napkin that you call a shirt." Sam rubbed an oil-stained hand against his arm in response to his boss's request. "And Luke, stop staring at that girl and get back to work." Mitch walked off mumbling, "Got more skirts chasing after him than I got ulcers. Misty Lou, get your ass back up there with them customers!" Stefan looked at this exchange with wide eyes.

"Be right back, Green Eyes." Sam grabbed a grey jumpsuit off of a hook on the wall, dragging a protesting teenager with him. Lucas Wheeler, I believe was his name.

"Bonnie, how do you know these people?" Stefan asked me. He looked concerned and I started to tell him to reserve his concern. Keep it for the plan that I had comprised to save Elena. Because there was a very good chance that even if I found the spell that I was looking for, it would still go very wrong.

Just then, we heard footsteps rounding the garage, coming toward us. They were followed by two shadows: one male and the other one female. Our eyes traveled up the shadows to meet those of their owners.

"Katherine," Stefan choked out.

"Well, nice to see you too, Stefan," Damon wore his usual smirk. It took everything that I had not to blow his brains out with my mind.

"Bonnie, I told you not to say or do anything until I called you." Her eyes skipped over to Stefan, immediately aware that her mission had hit a slight snag. "Stefan, it's me, Elena. I called Damon because…" I could tell that she wanted to keep everything a secret from him. "Katherine. She's back, Stefan, and Damon's the only one close enough to stop her." Damon looked at her as if she had lost her mind. I; however, sent out a silent prayer that Sam wouldn't return until I could get all of away from Mitch's Motors. He'd ask me about my disappearing act later, there was no doubt about that, but at least he would be out of harm's way. Damon had, after all, tried to kill him once before. And I hadn't had the chance to slip him anymore Vervain.

Stefan must have sensed my inner struggle, because he stepped up to his brother and growled, "We can all settle this at the manor, Damon." His eyes were murderous, and I admired his self control. Perhaps there was hope for him yet, in my eyes. But we were too late.

"Sorry, about that Green Eye—" Sam stopped dead in his tracks. His hands balled up into fists at his sides. "Those are the evil sons of bitches who tried to take a bit out of me!" So much for keeping him out of this.


	8. Point of No Return

**A/N: **So yes, I took my sweet little time on this one. And it was only because you guys liked my plot twist in last chapter. I couldn't very well write some mediocre chapter after it. But at the same time, I had to make it fit the next chapter, because it's already halfway written. With that being said, thank you to my newest adds **DaTruePrincess **and **Dove L Salvatore**. Also, **TheSouthernScribe**, you keep me on my toes. This chapter is for you. Lastly, **JClayton** you nearly killed me with your "semi-shirtless Sam" comment. I thank you so much for getting involved with this story, and as I've said, I already have the idea and pieces of chapter 9 constructed, and it is for you, honey. Including more shirless moments! But for now, I give you all what leads up to it, so let's get on with it shall we?

**Disclaimer:** Ha ha ha. That's a joke right?

POINT OF NO RETURN

Dean's POV

My style wasn't to just go ganking people in broad daylight. Even if they were evil. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved nothing more than to slit their filthy murdering throats, but dad had always stressed the importance of keeping civilians safe.

"It's not enough just to take 'em out, burn their remains, and move on to the next town," Dad would often tell Sammy and me after coming back from a long hunt, "we have to make sure that civilians never know about any of this." Credit card fraud? Well, that was ok. That was a way of life for us. Fake IDs and false names? Those had kept us from exposing the poor innocent suckers who lived in all of those small towns to the kinds of freaky shit that they'd all stopped believing in once they'd touched their first tit. And if it happened to help us cheat the law system, then that was a bonus.

Naturally, there had been times when our covers had been blown and Sammy and I ended up having to run from town to town like a bunch of criminals—yeah, I guess you could say that I was still a little bitter over how little benefits my last job offered— Not to mention all of the infractions that we were wrongfully blamed for. But it was always about getting rid of the problem and getting to the next town without anyone really knowing that we were there in the first place. Now, was different. Now, I lived in this town. I detailed their cars and slept underneath the same sky that as the rest of Mystic Falls' residential population. I might have used my brother's first name, but all that would change is the name on the mug shot when I wound up arrested for murder. Because, that's exactly what decapitating Mr. and Mrs. _Interview with a Vampire_ in broad daylight would have looked like to Green Eyes, her friend, and everyone inside the garage: murder.

It was late, but I could only hope that the person whose number I had just dialed was still awake.

"Dean, is that you?"

"Yeah, Bobby, sorry to call so late, but I…um…I need your help with something."

"What's wrong, son? Are Lisa and the kid okay?" This man was like the closest that I had to a father, and yet I had only just realized that he had no idea how far I was from where he'd left me. Last time we saw each other, I had just watched Sammy beat the living shit out of me, and then jump into the ground to give the Devil a taste of what I had just gotten. Last time we spoke, I'd told him that I was finished with all of this: the hunting, the fighting. All of it. Lisa and Ben needed stability. And I had thought that I needed them.

"They're fine, but I…I need you to tell me all you know about vampires." It took thirty minutes to calm him down. And another fifteen minutes for me to explain that I was no longer with Lisa. Finally, the last fifteen minutes of my calling card got him back on track.

"But it wasn't even night yet, Bobbie!"

"Vampires are like people. There are many different races of them. The ones that you and Sam fought could only go out at night. They were more like piranhas. Had teeth all over the place. Back in '85, your father and I met a couple of them outside of Pennsylvania. Called themselves the Sons of Dracula."

"So what'd they do? Sleep in coffins and pretend to be Dracula's bitches?"

"Something like that. In reality, they were really just hair brained idjuts who got off on drinking virgin blood and avoiding garlic." I thought about his words, "virgin blood_. I would have been safer._

"So what about the ones here?"

"Look, all I can tell you is that you look like you've got yourself a couple of traditionals on your hands." I waited for him to explain. "Some of them want coffins. Some of them can run fast. And some of them look just like you and me. But there are three things they all have in common: they need blood, sunlight'll kill 'em, and they can't get to you unless they've been invited inside of your home. If yours could walk around in the daylight, then maybe you need to do some research 'cos they ain't s'posed to." I sighed, trying to process all of the new information that I had learned. Newspapers and print outs on vampire lore littered the linoleum kitchen table. Articles on the animal attacks and history on a woman named Katherine Pierce were among them, but they might as well have been in Greek. This was Sammy's area of expertise. Not mine

"Listen kid," Bobbie started, "I really wish I could help you, but not all of us stopped hunting, and right now I'm hiding in a dark alley, looking out for a maniac who doles out bad luck. Now, I know you still have Sam's computer, so put on your big boy pants and use it." Sammy's computer lay on my night stand. He was the last person to use it. Right along with his phone that I still kept in service. Just in case.

Never in history had one and one equaled anything but two, but as I thought about everything that had happened downstairs earlier, one and one just kept multiplying.

The five of us stood around in a circle looking from one to the other, not saying a word.

"Somebody better start talking, or so help me—"

"Ugh! I'm starting to see why you stick to Bambi, Thumper, and the rest of his little woodland creature friends," Leather Jacket spoke to Green Eyes' friend, who had stepped so close to him that I was starting to feel like I was in some type of low budget porn flick. And not the type involving either girl, sadly. "Because this one over here is starting to make me sick." He cocked his head in my direction but never took his head off of the friend.

"Well, you know what they say, Damon," Green Eyes shot daggers at him with her eyes, "you are what you eat. Maybe you should be a little bit more watchful of your diet in the future." Leather Jacket, known by everyone else as Damon, rolled his eyes in an overly dramatic manner. Come to think of it, all of his mannerisms were over the top. He was like some pissy little girl on her rag. A crampy, cranky, bitch.

"Oh come on, my little Bon Bon, can't we just call a truce?" He sidestepped Eyebrows and crept directly in front of Green Eyes, reaching out to play with her hair. Cassie's hair. "You know, kiss and make up." He emphasized the words "kiss and make up" by whispering them in her ear. I could tell that this lame ass line would have worked on the tall brunette by the way that she was looking at his ass. Her eyes flew to mine, and she quickly tried to hide her face behind her hair. But Leather Jacket didn't notice. He just kept twirling his finger down the length of her hair, past her throat. Green Eyes caught his finger in her small hand, letting a small smile edge its way onto her lips. I couldn't believe that she was actually buying this shit! The long string of wire that I had stuffed into my jumpsuit the day after Luke and I were attacked was starting to burn through my pocket as I twirled it in my hand. He had one more time to touch her, and then I would be watching his bloody head roll down the street.

Seconds later, I actually thought that I had carried out my unspoken threat, because his head snapped backward, leaving us all with a view of his seemingly headless body. Then it came back, revealing two nearly black eyes. Demon's eyes ringed in red veins.

"You, little witch," he raged around a set of fangs, "are going to regret that." Something flashed in her eyes. A spark of worry maybe? But then something else took over and she just looked pissed off.

"Damon," Eyebrows pushed himself between the glaring couple, "you need to take this elsewhere. Now is neither the time," he chose his words carefully, "nor the place for confrontation." Leather Jack—Damon plastered that fake ass, constipated smirk on his pasty face and crossed his arms. He was looking for a challenge, clearly, and the wire string, which was red hot by now, was ready to give him one.

"Hey Dracula!" He narrowed his eyes at me and drew back his lips, "You better listen to Eyebrows over there, and stay the hell away from her," He ran over to me with superhuman speed and tilted his head sideways.

"Aw, isn't that sweet, Bon Bon, your boyfriend's trying to defend you. Doesn't he know that you can take care of yourself?" He looked back at Green Eyes to judge her reaction, which consisted of wide eyes filled with horror. He sneered at her fear. "Oops! Guess you two haven't had that awkward little 'who's who' conversation yet." His eyes were back on mine. "I guess she didn't tell you what she really was. Did she?" My hands wound tightly around the string of wire. Damn the cops. This bastard was going down. Now! "Perhaps, I should help you two along."

"I warned you to leave her alone," the words flew from my mouth like vomit. My feet were ready to swing out and connect with the bloodsucker's ankles. After that, I could only hope that killing him wouldn't cause the rest of the group to run screaming for the police. Or that Green Eyes would visit me once they took me into custody. I had already been arrested once. It was a shitty way to survive, but if worse came to worse, I knew that I could.

"Or else what?" He ignored Eyebrows' and the brunette's pleas for him to stop and grabbed my wrist in a nearly bone crushing grip. The wire fell to the ground. "You'd be dead before you even got the chance to raise your feet off the ground." His grip tightened around my wrist, angling it so that I had no choice but to turn around, or watch him snap my arm into pieces.

Their pleas got louder. This time, they were followed by, "Bonnie, stop! Bon—no!" and "Stefan, he's going to kill him if you don't let me go." They continued a hushed argument that turned into a loud scuffle.

"Is that all you got?" I asked him, trying hard not to let the pain creep into my voice. I'd be damned if I let this rotting piece of shit get the best of me. "I've had lap dances that hurt more than that!" I jerked my head back, head-butting him in the face, and causing him to stumble away from my arm.

"Damon," the brunette grabbed his arm, "stop it! We have bigger problems." She rushed to Eyebrows. "Stefan, stop me him!"

"Yeah, Stefan," Leather Jacket had recovered from his brief injuries with not so much as a damn bruise, "Stop me!"

"Damon…" Green Eyes warned. Her arm extended, but Eyebrows grabbed her again.

Leather Jacket walked around our circle, using his hands to emphasize his callous words, "You know, all I wanted was to go out, take a nice stroll around the block, have a little dinner," he winked at Green Eyes, "and then have a little fun with _our girl,_ here." He reached out and grabbed the brunette by the hip. She swatted his hand away, and ran over to Eyebrows, trying desperately to hold both him and Green Eyes back.

Still, he continued with his little rant, "You can't imagine how much it hurts to be so…disliked in your own home town. But I must say Steffy, I kinda like this," he wagged his index finger between the two of them, "You pulling the whole 'dangerous but cautious' role around me. Almost like you're afraid. It's much more attractive than your usual broody…ness." I had had about enough him. The wire was back in my hands now. "What's wrong? Afraid I'm going to snap and do something like this?" He ran at Green Eyes with the same superhuman speed that he'd used on me earlier. Only this time, he didn't get very far before falling to the ground clutching his head. Blood pooled around his face as he buried himself into the ground. It spilled from his eyes, his ears, his nose, and his mouth. If there was an opening, blood found it and seeped out.

"Bonnie!" The brunette shook her friend.

"I-I don't know what's going on either," Green Eyes said curtly, but not without shock.

"Bonnie! He's dying. Don't just stand there and—" The brunette was practically in hysterics now. _Her happy ass wasn't screaming like that when he'd almost offed me! _

"What am I supposed to do?" Green Eyes shrugged the brunette off of her, her face was turning red. Like the color of rust. "It's—"

"Me," Eyebrows finished for them. Both girls' heads flew in his direction, their curls flying wildly. Blood stopped flowing from Leather Jacket, and he lay on the ground bitching about how he was going to kill "that little witch." No one was listening to him.

"Mind telling me what the f—"

"Um, my…friend is having a… migraine. My name is Elena by the way." She stuck her hand out. Like I'd be stupid enough to shake her hand. Call me a dumbass, but I didn't feel like getting all chummy the whore who'd nearly helped kill me.

"It's not…her," Green Eyes said through gritted teeth. She was talking to me, but continued to watch the brunette.

Mitch came out a second later demanding to know what all of the commotion was about.

"Nothing sir," the brunette answered. My friend isn't feeling well, so I'm going to take him home." Mitch seemed content with her little story, but it still didn't add up to me. I'd had plenty of migraines, and none of them had ever caused a reaction like that. It was definitely supernatural. His whole body was covered in drying blood. And why did mean about me not knowing who she truly was?

"It better be!" Mitch hung up his jumpsuit and tossed me the keys, "Sam, make sure you lock everything up real good tonight." He eyed them for a second longer, before walking back up to the front. His shift being over for the day, Mitch hauled ass out of the auto shop.

The vampire yanked his arm away from the brunette and grabbed hers instead, running as far as his legs would take them in under five seconds. Eyebrows looked after them. He looked ready to leave, but Green Eyes stopped him for a second with a look. They didn't say anything to each other, yet anyone who paid close enough attention could see that there was a sense of communication between them. _Just how close was he to her? Were they close friends? Exes? She didn't look like the type to go around banging random guys, but…_ I shook the thoughts out of my head, watching as their silent conversation ended with him nodding his head and walking slowly away from Mitch's Motors with Green Eyes behind him.

"What did the vampire mean about you not being honest about who you really are?" She didn't turn around. She didn't stop walking.

Yet, her voice was sad, "He's a monster. Monsters lie," That much was true. Evil could always be trusted to lie, unless telling the truth was more devastating. My hand seized hers and she gasped.

"Stay away from me, Sam! Please, please, ple…se, just leave me alone before you get hurt!" Her knees gave out, and the bloody grass stained her jeans green and red, but she didn't care. Her whole body was shaking now, breaking her words and making them catch in her throat. Green Eyes would fight to the death just to bury the tears, but they'd rip her up inside all the same.

"My arm's going to be fine. You make it seem like he killed me, or something. It's nothing that a little Jack and a sling can't fix," I tried to lighten the mood, but black clouds surrounded her.

"This time," she got back up and looked into my eyes, "but what happens when you're all alone? They know where you work; where you live!" Her words were running miles around themselves, but the babbling didn't deter her, "What happens when you lock up for the night and go upstairs to your apartment? When you take out the trash? When you go to the Grill, or out to a restaurant, or even the grocery store!" She put her hand up to silence me, "What happens when no one is around to save you?"

"And you think that you're going to get me killed? Because let me tell you, I've been chased down by worse. Of course, it would help if you told me what I'm up against." She didn't look convinced, but she grabbed my hands and closed her eyes. I almost leaned into her, only before I could, she opened her eyes and smiled sadly, "Walk me home?"

The whole scenario, walking a cute girl dressed in pressed jeans, a tight purple sweater, and penny loafers was unfamiliar to me. A bit to _Leave it to Beaver_ for my taste. But considering that that same girl was stained in blood and grass, saying things like, "My best friend's twin sister was turned into a vampire," and "The guy that I was with earlier was one of my Grams' anthropology students, before she died. He knows a lot about…this stuff," normal was the last thing that I could have accused this moment of being.

"You know, we have to do something about all of this right?" We were on her street now. She laughed for the first time that night.

"No, you'll go home, and pretend like none of this ever happened. There are people working on it, okay?" The two of us were on her porch now. I didn't even know how we had gotten here so fast. She stared at the dim light as if it were attracting her attention away from the conversation. I grabbed her shoulders and slammed her against the side of the house.

"I'm not just going to sit on my damn hands, while the whole town goes to hell around me. Especially not with you living in the center of it all."

I felt that familiar tug at the collar of my jumpsuit as she looked toward the door. It said, "You should leave, but I really want you to stay." And it suddenly felt like ten years ago all over again.

"You could get hurt," not even air could have gotten between us. We were that close.

"What else is new?" Those tiny fingers pulled even harder.

"I don't know whether you're brave or just stupid, but either way, you'd be better off if you just turned around now. Save yourself."

A light on the inside of her house flickered to life. _Was her dad home? Because one strict dad was enough to last me a lifetime._ Needless to say, I backed away from her. Of course, I didn't get very far with her hands attached to my collar.

"Don't tell me you're scared. I thought you were a risk taker" she spoke against my lips. If only she knew just how much of a risk taker I really was. Even saying her name was a gamble at this moment, because I wasn't entirely sure that it would be hers that came out.

Luckily—or unluckily depending on how you looked at it—her dad put an end to us, before anything had even happened, "Bonnie Bennett, it's time for your friend to leave." She pushed me away slowly and cast her eyes downward. Only, daddy wasn't finished. "You just missed Elena and her tall friend. Dangerous looking young man." Mr. Bennett made Cassie's dad look like a free-loving hippie.

"At nine o' clock?" she asked her dad.

"I know, but they made quite the compelling argument," he said in his monotonous voice. He stood really still; back rigid. He was like a twisted ass robot. Or one of those little nutcracker soldiers "They only came inside for a second. Wanted me to make sure that you got the message…"


	9. Bittersweet Dreams

**A/N: **Ok, so never in the history of this story have I popped out a chapter this fast. But what can I say, your reviews have inspired me. Now, before you read this, I just want to share a few things with you. Bonnie's voice will be more poetic, because this is a **dream sequence.**The show makes Bonnie out to be a very powerful witch but they never really go into her just what those powers consist of and how haunted she is by them. We only know that she can read people through touch. Yet, throughout history, dreams have been a way of communication for some cultures. Plus, I'm facinated by dreams and I wanted Bonnie to be heavily affected by hers. Also, this chapter is a treat to all of you who have stuck by me for the first part of this story. It's a little thank you. This is actually loosely based on a dream that I had. It shook me really badly, but I was never able to figure out what it meant. Then, I realized that it could be a great narrative device to add to the confusion that is _A Million Ways, _seeing as how it actually is important to the plot. Plus, I had to upload something in celebration of the U.S. premiere of Supernatural Season 6 tonight. So alas, here you are everyone (**TheSouthernScribe **and **JClayton** please do not kill me!) Next chapter will be normal. Now, let's get on with it shall we? **Read and REVIEW!**

BITTERSWEET DREAMS

Bonnie's POV

There was an old adage that my Grams used to say. It was something to the effect of, "If your waking life doesn't get you, your dreams will." As a little girl, I would sit at her kitchen table and nod my head, hoping that she would hurry up and fill my plate with bacon and her famous buttermilk biscuits. It never even crossed my mind at the time that, in addition to that morning's meal, she had served me a moral: all things catch up to you in time.

Now, there are many theories on the phenomena: Freud attributed dreams to unfulfilled sexual desires. Others say that they are just complicated workings of the mind that provide us with the things that we lack when the sun comes up. We interpret them. We push them aside. We even wake up screaming from them. But the one thing that we can't do is ignore the heightened sense of reality that they bring. Think back to the sweetest dream or the worst nightmare that you've ever had, and try to tell me that you didn't wake up clutching your pillow, feeling as though those nightly apparitions were still lurking right around the corner.

A dream ending with a kiss will bruise your lips even redder than the real thing. But stumble upon a loose piece of gravel and you'll awake from the scare of your life, heart still pounding at the "near death experience" that it just underwent.

This dream had everything that could possibly get the heart racing: mystery, intrigue, and sex. All in that order. And I felt every little maneuver as if it were encompassing every cell in my body:

_**She walks in secret. **_

_**Long dark hair trails behind her as she creeps inside of the dark classroom, looking behind her to ensure that she really is alone in her endeavor. She doesn't see me. She thinks that she's all alone, and I pray that my shadow doesn't betray me. That the darkness of the hallway will swallow me up in its obscurity. **_

_**Twenty paces separate us from the there and now, and I follow. I follow her into that dark abyss that, even though I've been inside of this classroom a thousand times, promises all of its entrants a transformation. This room does exactly what it should: it serves as a portal between history and present. Takes everyone inside of it to a time, maybe even a dimension, in which he and she weren't meant to exist, and watches as the scene unfolds. I wonder how well she fits into this era. Would she fade into it as smoothly as she had the last? Or would she be born to this new life and be haunted by her former self through no fault of her own. Because even before the tale of two spirits made her indistinguishable, her growing attraction for both the dangerous and the tortured was making it hard to tell the her apart from the past. **_

_**Unsuspecting people of all kinds are brought together inside of this semi-dark room, hypnotized by the blackness of their computer screens. None of them stop to realize that this class room has no desks; that this classroom isn't really a classroom at all, but more of a dimly lit media room set up with cubicles and partitions intent upon separating them from that which is really taking place. They have no faces, no identities. Just a mesh of facial features that are not limited to names. They can be anyone whom they want. They can be from any place that they desire, but for some reason, they've decided to be in this place at this time. And I couldn't care less.**_

_**Sam slowly turns away from his eerily blank computer screen; turns away from the others who can choose their names and identities at will, and makes it so that name doesn't even matter anymore, because he's here, and he notices me.**_

"_**In a hurry Green Eyes?" There's a lightness in his voice and he's giving me that grin that turns my insides to fire. The one that crinkles his eyes like an innocent child, deceptively leaving out the fact that he's anything but. His teeth bite on a pen, and had I been one of those nameless, faceless girls staring blankly into space beside him, I would have tested the limits of my self control and replaced the pen in his mouth with my cold lips. Perhaps then he could have brought me to life. I'd been dead inside for too long. **_

_**He gives me another small chuckle, followed by a wink. And still, I couldn't care less. I'm mesmerized by the hunt. Seduced so much by the trail of those long chocolate locks, that finding her is all I can focus on. It's the only thing that matters anymore, and I round the corner without saying a word to him. He chokes on the cold dust that I leave behind.**_

_**The partition leads to a vacant computer, and Elena/Katherine is nowhere to be found. It's as if she has vanished into thin air. Maybe the computer holds the key. Maybe she left if here to tell me something, but before I can reach out and touch it, the hard blue carpet gives away to impenetrable woods. Suddenly, it's night again. The darkest kind of night that holds onto light and threatens never to release it from its grasp. Thorns cut my feet to shreds as I run through the thick brush, but I don't stop. I can tell that I'm getting closer to the truth without even knowing where I am. The means aren't important so long as the end is the same, and had the vampires that thirsted for the blood at my feet uttered this ideology I would have called them evil, uncaring, and self-serving. Yet in this case, I'm the blood thirsty one. Footsteps are all around me in the deepness of the trees. They're invisible, but still they exist as surely as the sight of those fleeting brown curls just beyond the Falls Bridge. **_

_**There is no question in my mind that this is the right choice, chasing after someone who is both so familiar and foreign to me at the same time. Never once did edging along the narrow rope bridge that connects the two cliffs between the deadly waterfall and keeps me from tumbling into the choppy, rock-hard waters below make me want to turn around and be a "good little witch" like the seductively condescending male voice inside of the breeze kept urging for me to do. **_

"_**Go to hell, Damon. I won't let Katherine take her soul. I won't let Katherine do to her what she did to you." **_

_**There's another reason that they call this waterfall and the town for which it was named Mystic Falls. Most people see the fog and marvel at how dense it is. How the water seems to fall into an endless stream of nothing. Yet anyone who takes the time to gaze inside of it can see that it's really more transparent than the name gives it credit for. In reality, it's a mirror that ceases the constant chanting in my brain, "Don't look down. Do. Not. Look. Down!" The face on the other side is none other than Emily's. It seems so sure of itself. She has so much confidence that I wonder how she could have possibly possessed me again without transferring any of that confidence to me. Is it because I'm in full control this time? Is it because the only things that I've taken from Emily are her looks and abilities? Why does my reflection show my movements on another girl's face? For once I don't have the answers, but that doesn't matter. Emily tells me to stick to the task at hand: saving Elena.**_

_**Rocks nip at the wounds in my feet, or maybe they're really just pieces of glass left over from some wild high school party. It neither is important, though. My feet are too numb to feel the pain, much like the rest of me: too deadened to appreciate anything but the monotony of the chase. **_

"_**I'm warning you, witch. Turn back around," he speaks to me again from everywhere and nowhere in particular. We're in that part of the woods that we both know so well: the tombs. There's malice in his voice and if I could see his face, I'm sure that blame would be written all over it.**_

"_**You're not ruining my plans of a life with Katherine again. I'll rip your throat completely out this time and fling it into the Falls before I let that happen." His words echo off the tomb's hot walls. No face follows. **_

"_**Ignore him, Bonnie," Emily presses. "You have to open it. It's the only way to solve your problem." Grams was the last person to open this tomb. It held her aura. It was just as much of a prison for her as it had been to the vampires, and at this point, the "problem" that Emily had referred to could have been anything. **_

"_**You have to open it!"**_

"_**I don't know how," I yelled to Emily. To myself. I really didn't know how.**_

"_**Bonnie is that you? Help me!" Elena's voice amplified itself off the tomb walls. But with the voice and face of a true to life devil, it could just as easily have been Katherine's. The fact that this was a dream, and that they are supposed to bring clarity to the subconscious mind, did nothing to rid me of my indecision. The distinction between either girl wasn't any clearer now, than it was at any other time. All I knew was that one minute I was chasing the two girls, and the next minute I'm at a rock quarry, wondering if, by opening that stone jail, I was letting out the one person who should have been trapped in there all along. **_

"_**Step away from the tomb! I will not tell you again! You will NOT ruin this for me!" Damon was getting closer, causing my heart to hammer in my chest. I had to free her.**_

"_**Yes, Bonnie, you have to save her!" My hands, Emily's hands flying to the sealed entrance was the last thing I saw before Damon rushed at me snarling and spitting blood, and we fell backward onto…**_

_**The bed below me sat inside of a dark room; Grams' old bedroom. Everything was dark. Wooden floors were bathed in it. Cracking blue walls hide behind it. But there was light beyond the open door that called to me. Emily remained on the bed, alone on that very spot that I had just vacated. She was finished with my body. For now. Still, she wasn't finished with her mission.**_

"_**Save her Bonnie. You must save her!" A bubble of hysteria rose up in my chest, and I could have laughed out loud if not for the fact that situation was so utterly depressing. **_

"_**Save her/him" Emily voice spilt in two. She was no longer on Grams' bed. She was no longer inside of the dated room that I had come to know so well through countless visits to this house. It was, after all my sanctuary. The keeper of every artifact from the Bennett witch line lay within these walls, so it made sense that Emily's voice would linger on and curl into smoke around the room. **_

_**Red embers swirled around me in a blaze of colors and cries. It rose to the top of the white, chipped paint that covered the ceiling. It stung my eyes with tears of blood that was too rich to have been my own. It wasn't my own. This blood belonged to her. To the woman who lived in the fiery sky. **_

_**Golden flames shot out of her head, curling around her body in long silky tendrils. She's beautiful; otherworldly and completely aware that she shouldn't be here, but she's as real as anyone could be. For a second I believe that she's one of the faceless girls from before. Somehow, she must have wound up in Grams' room and gotten into one of her spell books. Was she part of the "her" that Emily had wanted me to save so badly, or was that description reserved solely for Elena? The woman didn't seem to know how to get down from her celestial inferno, and the light from the other room was pushing me further away. Yet, if she was uncomfortable in the flames, she never let on. And that's when I noticed them. The experienced, all-knowing green eyes with just a hint of stubbornness hidden inside. They could really care about you if they ever let you close enough, but the sadness hidden under her lashes told tales of wasted trust and bitter delusions. This wasn't a social call. She wasn't here merely to ensure my safety after a long and trying night. She had a motive that really shouldn't have surprised me. No good deeds ever went unpunished.**_

"_**He'd never admit it, but he's rotting inside. Please help him. You're the only one who can. Save him, Bonnie." I've seen her so many times, in dreams past, that the lines on her face have become as familiar as the ones on my palm. The fire, blinding as it is, feels the same every time he and I touch. I think that if her son and I weren't such unfortunate friends, our paths would have slammed into each other anyway. I crave his heat. And he needs me to chill the fire.**_

_**The fire lady, pushes me into the other room. Really, my feet have no say in the matter. It's not even certain whether they were involved in the process, but somehow I get to Grams' guest room where a hushed commotion ensues. The high bed is still covered in her pink quilted bedspread, pushed against the far wall to the point of blocking a large wooden vanity. Memories of playing in her polished jewelry box—jewelry that she left to me when she died—at the age of six flood my mind. For a second, it doesn't register that she was gone. That I'm not six, and she can't comfort me like she used to, because she's gone. My feet hadn't touched this floor since she'd taken her last breath, and it took everything that I had not to break down. All of the rage, pain, and blinding insanity came back to hit me with a force that crippled me even harder than it had the first time. **_

**This is the point that, if I had been able to control my dreams, I would gladly have awakened. No questions asked. But even the strenuous workout that my emotions were undergoing wasn't enough to wake me. Or maybe, I had had this dream too many times, and it was finally time to finish it.**

_**Faceless men in white clothes mumbled incoherently while picking up empty bottles of beer and other useless alcohol, each bottle housing a stronger liquor than the last. Sam stumbled from a swivel chair in the corner of the small room, and slid onto the bed. I crawled onto the bed as well, staying behind him just as I had with Elena/Katherine earlier. Content with being a subtle spectator to people that were once my friends and a visitor in places that had once been considered my home. **_

_**The men talked in a language that I couldn't really be sure that Sam understood. On the other hand, he was so far gone in his intoxication, that I wasn't sure if he'd be able to understand even the most basic signs of communication.**_

_**He wasn't funny Sam who drank because he felt like it. He wasn't lust-ridden Sam who winked at me while we were playing poker or blackjack and made lascivious comments about how we could up the stakes by removing a piece of clothing after every loss . He wasn't even depressed Sam. This one before me uttered nonsense syllables to the men who didn't matter just so that they would leave him alone. Because he no longer cared to pretend that he wasn't. If solitude was a necessity then he would embrace it. All he needed was his bottle of Jack to keep him company.**_

"_**Save him, Bonnie! Please save him!" cried a scream from Grams' room. And maybe she pushed me into crawling beside him. Maybe I didn't mind that he smelled like whiskey, because he was here, and I had noticed him.**_

_**Our arms and legs touched, but green eyes, both his and mind stared straight ahead. Like I had gotten my wish, I became one of those nameless girls from the computer room. His shallow breathing set a rhythm by which I was content upon living. Yet, the tingles in my core wouldn't give me peace. The tingles kept me alert to every little muscle that tensed and relaxed inside in his bare arm. **_

"_**Look at him," my brain screamed, "Don't lose him to your own fear. The fire woman would never forgive you." But my body wouldn't budge. Sam was giving me strict signals not to ruin this moment with words. That he was only letting me exist here with him, because pushing me away used up much more of him than he had right now.**_

"_**Don't turn. Don't look up at me, because I…" his voice was broken and I wanted to explode. There was tension everywhere, getting worse with every minute that I denied myself the chance to look at him. **_

_**The incessant humming between us took up the whole space. Sam and I were consumed by it. If I looked up now, we both knew what would happen. **_

_**They say that when you lose a limb, you can still feel it sometimes. The same cannot be said of sanity. Once it's gone, it's gone for good. Clearly, this foretold of what would happen next, as my fingers tied around the hem of his shirt. Pulling.**_

"_**That's right, Bonnie! Save him!" I didn't know how. I'd never know how. It was now my reflection in those twin green lakes, and I still didn't have a clue as to how I could save him, but as we breathed each other in and fell back on the quilted blanket, it didn't even matter that we were depending upon the one thing that we should have run away from. And the devil inside sat on my shoulder and sang:**_

"_**He's such a beautiful and funny thing. The kind that makes me bite his lip and want to do unsavory things. Good intentions turning into piles of sin thrown beside the clothes that we both wore that day. His virtue is not safe in my presence. In fact, it only fans a flame in me that threatens to burn down my pride and unleash his devilish side. I'm coming undone in record time." **_

_**His voice, now every bit as coherent and alive as I had ever heard it, is the crackling of an phonograph and his breathing is the drops of the rain. He is leather bound photos holding mysteries of the past, and I swear by the way that my heart painfully races, he's both pleasure and pain. His eyes are a deadly combination of warning and inviting. Still, any woman ever on the receiving end has little hope of surviving. She continues to hum:**_

"_**He dug himself inside of my skin. I drowned in his touch, and I've been gone ever since. Our movements are rhythmic. I cry him out, echoing loud. And I envision trailing caramel colored kisses down his neck. Staining his chest the same color as the blush that my cheeks have met. I'm consistently haunted by the naughty thoughts where he whispered words to which I complied. And I'm coming undone with every line." **_


	10. Witchy Woman

**A/N: **I am sooooo sorry that I took so long writing this chapter. It's just that writing them is an all-day affair and I simply have not had the time to write. Between going on trips for my birthday (where I hoped to find a secretive hottie with a rough voice of my own, but only ended up attracting a hot but horny bartender who turned out to be a complete jerk) and catching up on all of the homework that I missed while I was away, I had a hard time updating. I want to thank **TheSouthernScribe **and **JClayton **for embracing the dream sequence. I was really worried that you all would not be able to identify with it but your involvement in this story is greatly appreciated. I hope that you like this chapter as well. Also, thank you to **Sage360 **for adding me to your favorites. Feel free to send me a review. Finally, **MinaFTW, **I am amazed and super grateful to you for reviewing all of the chapters that you have missed. I thought that I scared you away. For that, this chapter is dedicated to you. Again, I am sorry for making you all wait, but I'm back now, and the updates should be more frequent. We are nearing the middle of the story, and things are about to heat up in a MAJOR way. So please stay tuned for that!

**Disclaimer: **I totally forgot to add one for the last chapter so I'm going to do it here. For Chapter 9 (Bittersweet Dreams), I don't own any of the characters, but the dream is mine, as well as the song that the devil on Bonnie's shoulder sings to her. It's called "Coming Undone," and as soon as I can record it, I'll give you all a link to it's YouTube URL if you want. As for this chapter, pah ha, I've gone back to owning nothing but an idea. So let's get on with it shall we?

WITCHY WOMAN

Dean's POV

"If she expects me just to sit by quietly and wait for a bunch of civilians to play _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, then she's got another thing coming," I mumbled to myself as I walked through the campus's manicured lawn to the damn near non-existent anthropology and folklore University was just like every other building in Mystic Falls: small and historic looking. I half expected a group of pilgrims to come out of the place talking about their butter churning class or some shit like that. But as the large clock tower in the campus's center hit 2:00 in the afternoon, all I saw was a bunch of chicks dressed in short skirts and tight shirts. And let me just say that they were the furthest things from pilgrims that one could get. Thank the man upstairs for spring! Granted, my faith in Him basically went to shit ever since Sammy lost his boxing match with the Devil, but even though He may have been asleep at the wheel for all the important stuff, He sure know how to create a season where the heat waves were longer and the skirts grew shorter. Still, as they walked past me, all grins and giggles, the only thing I could think about was Green Eyes. The closer that we got, the more mysterious she became, and I couldn't get her words out of my head, "There are people working on it." My head tried to wrap itself around that concept, but I just couldn't figure out why she was so sure that anyone in this city would be able to handle a situation that had nearly gotten even myself killed. Add that to the fact that her grandmother taught anthropology before being mysteriously killed in a town filled with vampires, and something told me that Green Eyes wasn't ponying up all the information that she should have been. So, it was time to come out of retirement.

"Can I help you?" A young redhead behind the front desk of the anthropology and folklore building's main office spoke to me without looking up. The book in her hand read, _Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture_ by Claude Levi-Strauss, and she didn't seem all that interested in putting it down anytime soon.

I cleared my throat and leaned in a little closer. Her tag said Rachel, "Hi Rachel, my name is Jason Teague. I'm thinking about enrolling into the anthropology program here, and I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about some of the classes." She balanced her book in one hand while fishing a course catalogue out of a nearby drawer. Keep in mind that she never took her eyes off of the book.

I took the catalogue from her hand and leaned in even closer, "Listen sweetheart, I'm only interested taking courses from a specific person, so," she sighed and forcefully turned the page like she was trying to get the point across that she really wanted to be left alone. _Well she shouldn't have taken this job, if she didn't want to deal with people, _I thought. You didn't see me working the front desk in some office, because I didn't have patience for dumb ass people asking dumb ass questions. "Hey, Little Miss Sunshine, eyes this way!" The sigh turned into a full on groan as if she had the nerve to be pissed off at me for calling her on her rudeness. I wondered how upset she would have been if she had found out that all the monsters in her little book were running around in the daytime instead of staying tucked safely in the imaginations of kindergarteners and thirty year old housewife-turned authors.

"Look sir, I gave you the course guide. Everything you want to know is in ther—" she finally looked up from her book. "Oh my," she breathed in a hoarse voice, "Tia, can you take the front desk?" she asked over her shoulder, seductive smile playing on her red lips, "I'm going to show this gentleman the archive room." I'll never know if the girl named Tia opposed the idea, because Little Miss Sunshine/Rachel walked around the desk holding an old looking skeleton key and motioning with her finger for me to follow her down the hall and up the stairs to a dark hallway with a small door at the end.

Every once in a while, she would "accidently" bump into me with those mini-skirted hips and whisper what I assumed to be an apology, "Sorry, the high altitude is making me a bit dizzy. Good thing you're here to catch me if I faint." I'd learned enough in my life to know what all of the arm grabbing and eye fluttering meant. And as tempting as it was to indulge her, something in me just wasn't as into it as I probably would have been a month ago. _Don't bullshit a bull shitter! You know damn well why you can't get it up and her name starts with a B! _

"Uh…yeah, so do you take all prospective students up here?" She pushed the dark wooden door open and felt through the dark room until her hand fell upon an oil lamp. It was as if we had stepped into the 1800s.

"Only a select few," she grabbed my hand and led me into the now dimly lit room to a long wooden table that contained nothing but a large book and a blanket of cobwebs. "So, Mr. Teague, was it? How exactly can I help you?" We sat down parallel to each other in front of the table. Her long legs crossed and uncrossed themselves while she chewed on a pencil. I thought back to last year when demons were popping out of the ground like coins from a slot machine. Lately, things were starting to feel a lot like those moments when all I had was myself and a fear that the person closest to me was not all that he seemed, or even fought, to be. Had the woman who was biting her lip and batting her long eyelashes expectantly at me tried this at that time, I would have had her lying on top of that table faster than a shapeshifter could change skins. Back then I would have been happy to mix business with pleasure.

**-THEN-**

"So tell me how preying on some poor defenseless girl is going to get us closer to finding out who's behind these urban legend murders?" Sammy sat on the bed behind me, staring at me through the mirror with his permanently disapproving "This is a serious investigation. We don't have time for any of your games" look. It was a look that usually accompanied by a long-winded speech on the importance of keeping on schedule. Blah, blah, blah.

"You're the one who said that we needed to get closer to the scene of the crime," I motioned to the letter jacked and jeans that I was wearing as an indication that I was taking his advice and doing just that, getting close to the problem. His eyebrows knit up into a confused state that lay between amused and annoyed, but underneath it, I could tell that he was trying hard not to laugh. "You got something else to say giggles?" His fake frown got even deeper, dimples betraying him.

"It's just…well, don't you think the letter jacket is a bit much?" I didn't follow. "Dean, you look like a fake rebel from some cheesy 1950s sitcom. What urban legend are you supposed to be, anyway?"

The last mythic death to hit the area ended in a sixteen year old babysitter lying dead on the floor with a telephone cord wrapped around her neck. The police report, which Sammy and I had checked on a few days ago on the way to visiting the babysitter's last clients, quoted the parents as having talked to the babysitter only minutes before the projected time of death. According to them, the babysitter had called to ask if she could watch the television in their bedroom because the couple didn't approve of their children watching it.

"Julie was always such a well mannered young lady. Always available for work, even when there were parties and football games going on over at the school. So, of course I told her that she was welcomed to whatever she liked," the wife, Mrs. Avery, cried and hugged her husband tighter.

"And that's where the psycho ganked your babysitter?" Sammy cut his eyes at me and turned red.

"I am so sorry! What my partner is trying to ask is what happened next." Mr. Avery, his eyes in angry slits that never left my own, filled in the blanks for the rest of the story.

"She thanked us for letting her use our television and then," he whispered for his wife to check on the children in the next room. "She doesn't know this part, because I was the one who had answered Julie's call. I didn't have the heart to add fear to her rapidly escalating state of hysteria, but Julie, just moments before the phone went dead, asked if she could cover up the," he looked down the hallway to make sure that Mrs. Avery was out of hearing range, "clown statue. She said that it freaked her out." Sammy and I exchanged glances. The house was worth at least a cool million. There were fancy paintings and sculptures thrown all around the place like buying a Picasso was the most normal thing in the world. Clown sculptures weren't exactly the statue of David, but maybe it was a form of perversion. Like, the thought of having someone watch got the Mrs. all frisky. Seemed moderately normal.

Which led me to my next question, "What's so strange about that? Lots of people hate clowns. Detective Casey over here," I patted Sammy on the back, "is terrified of them. Pees his pants like a little girl whenever a circus comes into town." Neither of them looked amused.

"We don't have a clown statue," he said and then escaped to the kitchen just as his wife was entering into the room. The murder before that one featured a distraught twenty year old in front of a news camera crying about how she awoke to find her poodle dripping blood in the shower next to a note that read: "People can lick too…" Every book that we'd researched listed the legends in this order as well, which meant that the next murder would happen in the woods, _The Boyfriend's Death _style.

"I'm the boyfriend that gets killed in the woods. Only this time, the legend's going to end with the psycho hanging from a tree limb while his hands bump against the Impala's roof, instead of me." His confusion came back as I reentered the room, stuffing a metallic square into my back pocket.

"So what's the condom for?"

"Because if all goes well, his hands won't be the only thing bumping against my car."

He shook his head in order to stifle a laugh, "You know that your hormones are going to get you killed one day, right?"

"Then what better way to go out than with a bang! Besides, what have I got to lose?"

**-NOW-**

I stared at her while she attempted to lure me in with her eyes, and realized that for the first time in four months, I finally had something to lose. And if I didn't get this woman to give me the information that I so desperately needed, losing Green Eyes is exactly what I would do. "Can you tell me what types of services your professors specialize in?" I was really looking for a specific teacher, Green Eyes's grandmother to be exact, but without a last name, I had no way of asking about her.

"Are we talking major selections or teaching credentials?" She asked, momentarily forgetting to use her flirty voice. I smiled and told her to update me on both accounts. "You know," the flirting came back in full force, "we don't get a lot of men enrolling into this department, and the ones who do don't look anything like you." I was hard pressed to ask her what she meant by that statement. Especially considering that Green Eyes's friend was also an anthropology student.

She listened to my description of Eyebrows with increasing disorientation; each second suggesting that she couldn't place any folklore student who fit his description. But perhaps, he was a recent graduate. Green Eyes had said that he used to be her grandmother's student. Not that he was still a student here. Rachel notified me that that wasn't the case.

"There hasn't been a graduate from the anthropology and folklore department since…" she took a shaky breath and wrung her hands nervously. A small part of me thought about reaching out and patting her knee, but I didn't need her anymore distracted than she already was, so I settled for handing her a tissue for her suddenly watery eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just that…many classes have been temporarily cancelled until the department can find another professor, so it's made it nearly impossible for our students to graduate on time."

"What happened to the previous professor?" I asked, popping a caramel candy into my mouth.

Her lips pursed as she got up from the chair. All tears had dried from her eyes. "You ask a lot of questions for someone who is just _interested _in enrolling into Lockwood U," I took it that Lockwood U. was the student population's name for the town's university, "Who are you really?"

The day after my conversation with Bobbie, I loaded the Impala and took her to meet him in Fairfax, Virginia. He was between hunts and wanted to know if I was okay; if I needed help with anything. But this was my fight. And I swore that it was my last.

"Well then take this," Bobbie instructed, winding a string of Vervain leaves around my necklace after handing me a package filled with Sam's and my fake ID's. "Just in case you need to do a little…extensive research."

Now, here I was showing the red head a badge that read: Lee Noris, Department Inspector, and giving her a sheepish grin, "I'm supposed to be undercover as a prospective student. It's easier to catch universities participating in fraudulent activities when they think that they're not being watched." She looked skeptical, which I thought was funny considering the fact that we were in a building that boasted ideologies on legends, myths, and monsters.

"I see," she drawled slowly. I could tell that she wasn't completely convinced by my whole inspector explanation, "would you like some tea, inspector?" I wasn't really an herbal type of guy. In fact, I'd been drinking beer and whiskey for so long, that I wasn't even sure my system could handle a drink so tame. But she looked like she really needed to leave and gather herself, so I accepted the offer.

A few minutes later, she emerged with two steaming hot Styrofoam cups of tea. I took a sip and burned my tongue. "Ooh, careful Mr. Noris. I just made it." _Well no shit Sherlock, _was my first thought, but then I noticed the distinct earthy taste. It wasn't all that unlike the Jack that Green Eyes had spiked my first night at the Mystic Grill or the string of—

"Vervain!" I yelled at her, "you think I'm a vampire?" she ran over and placed one small hand over my mouth while using the other to slam the door.

"Try not the use either V-word here please," she waited for me to settle down before speaking again, "How do you know about that herb, anyway?" I gave her an abridged version of how Green Eyes had slipped me some, leaving out, of course, the attack that came a few nights later. The red head sucked in a large breath and went pale.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"Yes, yes of course. Um…this girl who fed you Vervain she…" she stopped for a second, tears forming in her large blue eyes again, "The reason that we have had to close many of our classes is due to the death of our most accomplished professor, Dr. Sheila Bennett." She dabbed her eyes dramatically with the tissue, and then took another one from the box.

"Were you close to her?" It was probably a dumb question, but I wasn't exactly used to the waterworks. Plus, I was still curious to know what she had to say about Green Eyes.

"She w-was my m-mentor," she fought back sobs and stared at the water stained ceiling, "she had a way of encouraging her students that just made us all want to learn. There were times, right before I'd received my master's degree, when I would be stressed out to the point of quitting school and become a stripper at Stiletto. Professor Bennett would sit me in her office and talk me down from the ledge, promising that nothing was ever as horrible as it had initially seemed. I swear, it felt as though she knew the outcome of every student. She was truly a visionary." Her face was inspired, like she could still hear Sheila's words in her ear.

"So what does that have to do with the classes being postponed, or Green Ey—, I mean Sheila's granddaughter?"

Her eyes turned sad, making her place the cup on the wooden table. "Despite Professor Bennett's high acclaim, large amount of teaching awards, and report with her students, the university thought that having an anthropology field was a waste of money. Most of the department's professors were either laid off or left in search of larger colleges. Sheila; however, fought to keep the folklore department standing by taking over most of the classes. But the rumors…the rumors…" she shuddered.

"What kinds of rumors?" Seconds went by before she answered.

"Professor Bennett was a little eccentric. She would come to school smelling like herbs. I just thought that she liked to cook. Only, one day she came to school smelling of Vervain, mumbling something about how "they were back." I was in her office when she stormed in, grabbed me by the shoulders, and stuffed my purse with a large bag of Vervain. Her eccentricities scared many of the lesser devoted students into changing their majors, but as I stated previously, she was my mentor. So I listened to her." I asked her once again what those rumors entailed. "Some people…cruel people said that she took her work home with her," I wasn't exactly sure what that meant and needed clarification.

She cleared her throat, "Professor Bennett died, trying to ignore the piercing accusations from her colleagues, former friends, and even some students that she was…well… gifted."

"You mean like, psychic?" It wasn't everyday that I came across an actual psychic, and the ones that I had met, hadn't met such a pleasant end. With the way that this conversation was going, it was starting to sound as though Green Eyes's grandmother had encountered a similar fate. And I had a sinking superstition that her death had been of supernatural causes.

"No," she said, getting into her story and all of the theatrics that it obviously required, "like dark arts. Or _light_ arts in her case, since she was the epitome of virtue and faith." My gut was swimming with a sick feeling. Suddenly, the tea was making me feel nauseous.

"Do you believe that? That she was a…a," I couldn't say it, because if I did, then what did that make Green Eyes?

"I didn't," she answered honestly, and I didn't like her use of the past tense, "until I went to a car wash sponsored by the Mystic Falls High School cheerleading squad." She stopped as if this statement answered my question, but I remained silent, confident that she would finish the story. "While a couple of students were servicing my car, I stepped off into the woods to take an important phone call. From my spot in the trees, I could have sworn that I saw a car spontaneously catch on fire. Flames engulfed the car without any initial spark, ember, or match. And there was Sheila's granddaughter standing just five feet away from the car as if she were in a trance. She never even screamed for help."

"So what are you saying?" was my hoarse reply. The churning in my gut was getting tighter, and right now I just wanted her to tell me that some kid had flicked a cigarette underneath the car. Hell, I didn't care if she had seen a kid set the car ablaze on purpose, just so long as she didn't tarnish my perfect image of Green Eyes. But as the clocked ticked in the silent and dim room, Leather Jacket's face popped into my mind, lips repeating their previous words, "I guess she didn't tell you what she really was. Did she?" I shook the red head in front of me and shouted, "What are you saying!" She looked startled for a second.

"I-I'm saying that…that maybe there was more to those witch rumors than I had given Professor Bennett credit for."


	11. Dangerous to Know

**A/N: **So, by now, everyone knows that I have to thank my readers before I present my chapters. **TheSouthernScribe**, I'm glad that you got where I was going in the last chapter, and you actually inspired a part of this chapter. Well, your review did. **MinaFTW**, it's about to get a WHOLE LOT MORE INTENSE. Now, I really didn't get any adds or reviews for the last chapter (midterm exams? I know I should have been studying. He he), but I woud really appreciate some for this chapter, because it is THE chapter. It was the hardest one to write, and it's the one that makes me the most nervous. So please **REVIEW, **even if it's just to tell me that it sucks.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything but a mildly dirty mind and a love for Dean Winchester. Also, since this story is, in an essence, a collection of separate songfics that tell one complicated story, I feel the need to point out that this song "Dangerous to Know" is a song by Hilary Duff. I'm not a fan of hers but I did like this song, and I think that the lyrics fit so well. In this whole story, there are only two chapters where I will recommend that you search for the title song on YouTube, and this is the first of them. So let's get on with it shall we?

DANGEROUS TO KNOW

Bonnie's POV

"Will you be okay, by yourself for the night, Bon Pop?" daddy asked from the foyer of our house. With Damon being invited into our home, leaving my father alone was no longer an option. But, babysitting him was also not a task that I could commit to right now. So, I convinced him to enroll in a week long New Medicine seminar in New York. It would have seemed too convenient to be true, if a new medical lecture didn't take place every month, and my father, forever the workaholic, longed to attend one. Last year, he even saved up for it, but then disaster struck, and he felt guilty for even wanting to leave me alone.

"Dad, I told you not to worry about me. I'll be fine." _Because I won't be alone, _my brain had a mind of its own as I pushed my father toward the door.

"Are you sure you can't stay with Elena?"

He and I had been over this before, and as usual, I had to lie, "Elena and I are fighting right now." Before finding out about the Bennett witch ancestry, my father and I were extremely close. There was nothing that I couldn't tell him, and he was always honest with me. Now, I could write a book filled from cover to cover with lies that I'd told him just that week, and what made it worse was that he knew it.

"Okay," he eyed me slowly, not believing a word, "but come home directly after school this week, I don't want you running around this city with Lord Knows Who, like you've been doing."

"Yes, daddy," I replied and kissed him goodbye. We both knew that Lord Knows Who was code for Sam, who I would have gladly continued to avoid. After all, he may have been willing to help me, but I knew that the further we were from each other, the safer he was. Because the thought of Katherine sniffing out my scent on his skin was unbearable. And yet, I wasn't sure how much longer I could resist temptation. Especially today. Today, I was breaking all of my rules. Which was how, four hours later, I found myself above Mitch's Motors, standing right outside of apartment J2.

My hand lay on the dull brown door, suspended in thin air while my brain grappled with whether I was going to ball it into a fist and make my presence known or place it back at my side and pretend that I was never here. The last time I had seen Sam was in my dreams—literally. Until, then I had never thought of him as anything more than a friend. We had things in common; things that we needed to keep hidden. And we were both suspicious by nature. Or maybe by trade. But still, we were only friends. Yet, even as I hung my forehead against his door and forced myself to forget how real his skin had felt, or what would have been had my dad not interrupted us, I knew that that wasn't true. He'd dug himself inside of my skin. Wedged himself deep beneath muscle, bone, even soul, spreading rapidly through my veins, and no matter how far I tried to run, I'd still feel him. Still long to feel him.

The sound of my fist echoed loudly off of his door and rang down the quiet hallway. It made me feel foolish to be afraid at that moment, and yet, I stood there, shaken to the core at the thought of being swallowed up by those jaded green eyes. It wasn't the normal type of fear that fluttered the heart and sent innocent butterflies to my stomach. It was a violent kind of terror that painfully stabbed at my hands with anticipation. _Come on Sam, don't make this harder for me than it already is. Open the door!_

Finally, a loud raspy curse greeted me before the door opened to reveal Sam wearing a thin grey T-shirt and blue, cotton pants, water still dripping from his freshly washed hair. He did not look happy to find me on his doorstep, and given the fact that I'd avoided him like the plague since our last encounter, despite his many house visits, I couldn't blame him. But there was something else hidden in his expression. Almost like distrust.

"Can I come in?" I asked, feeling like a five year old caught with a cookie that was forbidden to her. He smirked at me and rested his arm on the door frame.

"You've been dodging me for a week, couldn't even answer your damn door, and suddenly, I'm just supposed to let you in because you pop back up and say so?" His eyes sized me up like I was a stranger. "Go home, Bonnie." My name coming out of his mouth sounded foreign, vulgar; even worse than some of the swear words I'd heard him use during our late night card games, and I realized that I too preferred the name Green Eyes to Bonnie.

"You're right. I've been avoiding you, and I'm not going to apologize for it," he made a move to close the door but I caught it before he could. "You think that you can handle what's going on, but you can't. And even if you could, I don't know if I can handle you trying," I added the last part in a small voice that made his glare soften a bit, but he still wasn't ready to invite me in yet.

"I told you that I can take care of myself," There was a hint of amusement in his statement. Then he stepped closer to me, searching inside of my eyes, "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"Never mind. I'll just go," I forced out, hoping that he would do just what he did and grab my arm. He looked back at his apartment; doubt written all over his face. Sam, I'd come to understand, was very private. He didn't talk unless he had something to say, and he never opened up more than was necessary. Therefore, it didn't strike me as odd that I'd never seen his apartment. For all intents and purposes, his apartment was an inanimate personification of Sam himself: a mystery.

But then he turned back around, closed his eyes, and uttered two words I never thought I'd hear, "Come inside."

The florescent lighting inside the apartment colored both of our skin green and highlighted the dark shadows under his eyes. He looked tired, and I couldn't help but wonder if maybe his dreams had been as intrusive as mine. Or even worse: the _same_ as mine. And yet, the walls were stained a bright yellow with flowery wallpaper bordering the ceiling. It was enough to make me smile.

"So why are you really here?" He stood with his back against a leaky sink, hands placed on either side of the linoleum counter top.

I could feel my mouth forming words. "I couldn't let my father stay in that house. Not with Damon being invited inside," it said, but my mind was a thousand miles away, trolling the dirtiest gutters that it could find and sending my lower pulse points racing at the sight of Sam standing just five feet away from me.

"Isn't there a friend that you can stay with? What about that tall broad with the long brown hair?" It was like talking to my father all over again. It was no wonder he didn't approve of Sam. They were just alike. However, this conversation was making me seriously rethink my decision not to stay with Caroline, except for the fact that I would have to tell her about Sam. A topic in which she would certainly have delighted. Only, I wasn't ready to make him anything more than a dirty little secret. Not yet.

"Sam, if you wanted me to leave, then why did you invite me inside?" He grumbled, some unintelligible complaint about how he would have to strip his bed and sleep on the couch, moving past me to extract a beer from a small green refrigerator containing a half-eaten platter of cheese fries, two bottles of water, four slices of apple pie, a bag of chili cheeseburgers, and a twenty-four pack of beer. Twelve of which were missing.

He followed my gaze back to the old refrigerator, "Hungry?" The thought of eating anything coming out of there, turned my stomach, and I grimaced a response, asking for water instead. "Suit yourself," he said, placing two of the slimy fries that dripped chili onto his clean shirt into his mouth before fetching a water bottle and closing the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked when he chose to walk in the direction of a narrow doorway instead of joining me at the small kitchen table.

"Keep your skirt on. I'm just going to fix the bed up a little. I'll be back in a minute," he walked into the dark room and called over his shoulder, "You can watch tv. Just use the pliars if you want to change the channels."

I didn't need television. I needed to remember why I was here. There was a reason that I had never seen Sam's apartment, and it went beyond his being so private. It was the reason that I had been avoiding him lately. This was a mistake for which I would have paid deeply later. A mistake that I should have righted by walking out of his apartment. By walking out of Mystic Falls. But as I placed the unopened water bottle on his table, the sound of papers rustling below the green sheet that was currently serving as a table cloth caught my attention.

Beneath the dirty table cloth laid a plethora of newspaper clippings and internet printouts, all about Mystic Falls. There were articles on the Mystic Falls animal attacks and Vicki's death, historical accounts of the Salvatore and Pierce families, and information on Grams that included theories about her mysterious death and an obituary. There had to have been at least 100 pieces of paper here. Some were old, but most of them dated back to earlier this week. And each of them was worse than the last. _What the hell?_

"It's not a five star hotel, but I changed the sheets and—"He stopped in his tracks, eyes transfixed on the spot where the table cloth was pulled up to display his current obsession. I had felt, the moment that our knees touched that first night at the Mystic Grill and then so many times afterwards, the horror and rage on his skin, but there was something about proof that always made the admission feel like a betrayal. Still, call it whatever you like: proof, betrayal, admission, omission of truth, here it was in black and white: he was here to investigate the unnatural. And with Grams's legacy lying on the table, I knew that there were no exceptions to that term.

Oh, don't misunderstand me, I, in no way was judging him for his vocation. How could I? Every dream that I had had of him involved a fiery woman crying bloody tears, and if this vision encompassed even one aspect of his life, then I could understand the ferocity.

Even more, the woman was starting to show up in my waking life begging for me to save him. But how could I save him when he hated all evil. A category in which, though I felt the same, I wasn't all that sure I didn't belong. At least by his standards.

"I can explain," His eyes conveyed a worry that nearly melted my resolve. It was as if he was so used to being someone else, always on the run, always changing identities, that he had never had to face anyone seeing his true self.

But under closer inspection I could see that the opposite was in fact that case, and the pain of that memory was coming back in full force.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, just for the sake of clarification.

He sighed deep and heavy. The happiness that I had become very accustomed to seeing was replaced by agony and indecision. "My name is Dean Winchester. I'm a hunter, and I think you're in danger."

It was a vague enough answer that anyone outside of our paper thin sanctuary would think that we were really talking about animal control. I could see him hoping and pleading for me to believe that too. But on some level, he had counted on me being able to see past his words, straight to their meaning, and even anticipated the outcome when I couldn't stay.

"Right on cue," he muttered dryly to my retreating backside, and for some reason, the embers inside of me grew white hot.

I knew that I should have walked away. I should have gone home to the safety Grams' afghan and let the numbing chill of her absence and this new revelation permeate itself in my skin. I should have tried to search for Elena. Maybe even gone back to patrolling the cold, dark woods, looking for something, anything, to kill. But I craved the warmth of burning excitement. It seduced me into turning around. This witch had been underestimated for the last time.

"Don't do that! Don't you dare compare me to some distant past that you couldn't have, because I. Am. Not. Her!"

"Listen, sweetheart, you don't know the first thing about it. So don't—" his eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. How did you know there was a woman involved?" He'd caught me. There were two options. I could either tell him that I had felt her on him. That I got visions of her every time we touched. _And pray that he wouldn't literally burn me at the stake._ Or, I could take his approach, and hope that vague answers and blame reversal were enough to distract him.

I decided that the latter was the best option. "Isn't that always the case?" His look of skepticism exploded into outright suspicion.

"Yeah, I don't buy that," he folded his arms across his chest in a way that raised his shirt just a little, exposing a sliver of skin. "See, I knew that there was something more to Leather Jacket's comment the other day, because evil has a tendency of telling the truth when they know that it'll screw with their victims." Step. Step. Step. And we were pressed as close as two people could be without actually touching. "I willing to believe that he was lying though, even after witnessing his little exorcism at the garage, for you. But then you pulled a disappearing act, and it got me thinking," he placed his hands on either side of the wall with my head between them so that he could stoop down far enough for us to be on eye level. "What are you hiding?" My knees grew weaker with every move of his lips as he described what he had found out at Lockwood University, and I was willing to do anything to make him stop talking. _Do it, Bonnie! He's standing so close. All you have to do is lean in and… _Ultimately, I couldn't do anything but tell him the truth. The parts that wouldn't get me killed, anyway.

"Rachel was right about the car wash," he jumped away from me as if I were the car, burning him with lies, and grabbed something shiny that I couldn't distinguish from the nearby countertop, "It wasn't my fault! There was a gas leak and…well… it freaked me out, so I froze. I couldn't do anything but stare at the flames. It reminded me of how close the gap between life and death was. How the existence of vampires was closing that gap."

He squinted, mentally picking my story apart as if he were on a witch hunt. I prayed that that wasn't the case but continued anyway, telling him all I could about Stefan and Elena and hoping that he would be too overwhelmed to further question me. He wasn't.

"That still doesn't explain what happened to Leather Jacket back there! The douche bag had more blood pouring out of him than a stripper's got tips. Are you trying to tell me that shit like that happens on a daily basis around here? And what about Granny Dearest? Who butchered her?"

This new side of Sam was colder. _He's not Sam at all, _I reminded myself. And yet, this more authoritative, take charge version of himself, no matter how infuriating he was, was all the more irresistible for it. "You're the hunter. Why don't you tell me! No matter what I say, you'll never believe it, and I won't be the product of your conjecture. So either trust me," I reached behind his back, grabbed the knife that he tried to hide, and held it to my own throat, "Or kill me." Suddenly, a bang sounded at the door followed by the screams of an angry tenant who requested that we both kill each other so that he could resume his sleep.

"Hey, why don't you go screw yourself?" Dean yelled to the door. To me, he took the knife away and impatiently demanded that I tell him about Grams.

"Grams was a…psychic who fought to the death in order to rid this place of the vampires that stalked it," The windows started to buckle under our building tension. He edged closer to me, looking around at the trembling glass. "She even tried to warn her students," I reached out and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. "And how did they repay her? By calling her a witch!" My teeth ached from being clenched so tightly. "So I vowed to pick up where she left off. With Stefan's help,"

"You should have told me the truth, Green Eyes." It was shameful how, even during a time such as this, that name could send chills down my spine. But there they were in crippling abundance.

"Because you're the pentacle of honesty? Sam, was it?" I could tell that he wanted to protest. To tell me that he'd only lied to protect me, but we both saw the hypocrisy in that excuse. Besides, the only person he was interested in protecting with that lie, was himself. "You and I both know that people only want the truth until they get it." Visions of a brown eyed girl with long curly hair flew past my eyes. She had walked out on him the minute he told her the truth. And I had almost followed in her treacherous footsteps. "So, isn't it better not to take that risk?"

I tried to close the gap between us, but he reluctantly held me back, "I told you that I was a risk taker, but I'll only gamble if the risk is worth it. So, I'm going to ask you one last time: are you hiding anything else from me?"

Some secrets need to be kept. Some stories should never be told. We think that honesty is the best policy because it's a virtue. That breaking that virtue will break Hell's seal. But who says the truth's going to save you, when the truth can be just as dangerous?

"No," I pulled him to me more forcefully than intended, "there's nothing else."

The night dissolved into pain-filled stories of women in white, wendigos, yellow eyed demons, his father's deal, tricksters, shapeshifters, his deal, demons, angels, his brother's fight, and more about Heaven and Hell than I could take. We talked until there was nothing more to say. Until we were sitting on the bed that he'd made for me in complete silence in the dark, hot room, humming in anticipation that made my dream seem tame in comparison. And when sitting became too strenuous, we found ourselves lying down, him staring down at me with his head propped onto his hand, and me wrapped inside of the blankets, squeezing a pillow between my legs.

Somewhere, a clock ticked, beating the rhythm of my racing heartbeat, and I thought that time must have been flying, because my pulse sure was. I could feel it on him too. The blinding cravings. The repressed thirst that needed to be quenched. For that night only, we were Sam and Green Eyes: two people who had met in a bar and drank until the other swam before each of their eyes. Who grabbed for each other, peeling Bonnie and Dean off of the other, and throwing them next to the piles of sweatpants, t-shirts, jeans, and sweaters that already littered the floor, content with the fact that they were so easy to pull from the skin. We were possessed by them, by the drunken couple who replaced the soaked pillow wrapped in my thighs with a beautiful nightmare of a man, their mouths clashing together, tongues tangled.

I was free of Bonnie, the girl who had lost her grandmother and went off the deep end, just as he was willing to give Dean up, a man who would surely kill the girl trailing sloppy kisses down his neck and chest if he knew what she was, because it meant that he could have the life he'd always wanted. A life where he'd never been to Hell. Neither of us cared that we weren't them. Or that we were riding, literally and metaphorically, in the fast lane of a highway headed straight to Abbadon, seven vices at a time...

Two hours later, I lay in his bed holding a sleeping Dean to my chest while the rest of him stayed tangled inside the nest that was my limbs. Every now and then, he would stir in his sleep, fighting demons in his dreams; dreams that I could see and feel as though they were my own, and his fingertips would brush my bare hips, further opening the portal to Hell into which I was slowly descending. I wanted so badly to run my fingers up his arms and neck to his cropped blond hair. To play with the ends and soothe his nightmares until they were just bad dreams, not violent memories. Yet, somehow, I held back, afraid that even the slightest sign of caring would drive us so far from the limit that nothing could ever be done to bring us back. But it was too late. The rise and fall of his chest against mine had pushed me over the edge.

And I was falling…


	12. Dominance and Submission

**A/N: **I got more alerts for the last chapter. Yay! Thank you to **-x- Ebony-Night -x-**, **zitchdog**, and **heartmiley** (I got your message and thank you very much for taking the time to read the chapters, as well as liking the idea of this ship. I love Dean/Bonnie, and I'm glad that you do too!) for adding _A Million Ways _to your alerts. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank a very special reader who writes amazingly sweet reviews to every chapter and has encouraged me to write a sequel to this story by asking that you all head over to **TheSouthernScribe**'s page after this and read her amazingly well written and compelling story _Kisses on Friday. _It's not the same ship (thank goodness or I'd have some serious competition in the writing department), but I am seriously addicted to it. Now, we are only five chapters away from the ending and I can tell you that each chapter, starting with this one, will be filled with angst, cliffhangers, and nothing will be what it seems.

**Disclaimer: **I'm not even going to say how much I don't own any of this. So let's get on with it shall we?

DOMINANCE AND SUMBISSION

Dean's POV

**Carry on, you will always remember.**

**Carry on, nothing equals the splendor.**

**Now, your life's no longer empty.**

**Surely Heaven awaits you!**

**Carry on my wayward son…**

Somewhere an alarm clock, tuned to 91.3 AM Classic Rock, screamed that it was time to wake up, but with storm clouds rolling in outside, it hardly felt like morning. The day before a hunt was always the most exciting for me. There were nights when I couldn't sleep at all, opting for the motel's generic lotion and Sammy's computer as a form of entertainment to help me pass the hours until sunrise. Fighting wasn't like some pansy extreme sport, separated by rounds and bells and requiring ample amounts of rest. Hunting was something that I could do in my sleep, and seeing as how I didn't need any to do so, I'd greet the sun and Sam with heavy enthusiasm, ready to kill some evil sons of bitches and hit the road. Nothing special. Just another day at the office. But the morning after a hit made hangovers seem like a walk in the park.

That morning, there were scratches running along my shoulders, disappearing down my back. Purple bruises sat upon my chest, and though there were no mirrors around, I could make out the distinct beginnings of a scar forming on my lip. Only, unlike the usual slit, this cut was broken, almost like teeth marks. "What the he…hey Sammy, turn that off, will ya?" My eyes shut tightly as I waited for the throb of a post-hunting headache.

That was the thing about hunters: we were tough, made with a thicker type of skin than the average civilian, and could take a beating better than a prize fighter. I'd been knocked on my ass so many times, I was damn near immune to it. Not that it didn't hurt like hell, but hunters were hard to kill. Which was why I wasn't worried about the migraines. Concussions were just a small price to pay in all that toughness, and I had found that the sooner they came, the sooner I could drown the throbbing with a bottle of Jack and a couple of aspirin. But the throbbing never came.

…**there'll be peace when you are done.**

**Lay your weary head to rest.**

**Don't you cry no more.**

"Sammy! Turn that shit off!" _Where the hell, is he? _I wondered while swiping at a nearby desk to hit the alarm's snooze button. It wasn't there. The music continued, forcing me to roll over, slowly and painfully, to check under the motel's bed in search of the sound. That's when it all came back to me: the fight, sharing the family secret, the scratching, the biting, the fact that Sammy was gone and I hadn't hunted in over five months, and Green Eyes who was currently…"Hey where the hell do you think you're going?" She stopped dead in her tracks, neither turning around to face me nor continuing to tip toe toward the door.

"Downstairs to begin my walk of shame in front of all your co-workers," she laughed nervously and reached for the door handle. For a second, all I could do was stare at her, dressed in tight fitting jeans cupping her ass while she tried—and failed miserably— to cover her tits with the rest of her clothes, shoes caught somewhere inside of that messy pile. _I could definitely get used to seeing that every morning, _I thought, resting my hands behind my head and smirking at the sight, until realization dawned on me. She was trying to pull a hit and run! "So, so that's it?" Suddenly my throat went dry and raspy. "I spill my freakin' guts to you last night like twelve year old girl, and you what? Give me a roll in the sack, and take off?" She looked back at the dark, dirty room with the yellow curtains that she'd obviously been too ashamed to open. Like I was some two cent whore that she picked up off of a street corner and wanted to ditch as quickly as possible. "You'd might as well just leave a tip on the nightstand!" Her arms dropped to her sides in defeat as she turned around to face me, completely forgetting that she was naked above the waist.

Or not, considering that the next thing she did was cross her arms in front of her chest again, "You know it's not like that," she quietly replied, looking everywhere but at me, "It's just that…I never meant for this to happen," she was having a hard time getting her words out, but at that moment, I couldn't feel sympathy for her stuttering. All I felt at that moment was pissed off.

"Hey, I didn't ask you to come over last night. You did that all on your own, so don't put the blame on me!" Now she looked up, forcing her eyes to meet mine, and from the way that they narrowed into slits, I could tell that she wasn't too happy about the situation either. The question I had trouble with, though, was why I was acting like such a pissy little chick. _How many broads have you left lying in bed during the middle of the night?_ That little voice, a growing conscious in the back of my head that just wouldn't shut the hell up, played Devil's Advocate with my equally growing temper. But this time, anger won out. Green Eyes wasn't getting the best of me.

"I'm not blaming anyone," she walked over to the bed and sat down beside me, "I'm just…well what did you expect? You had to have known that this," she motioned between the two of us, "wouldn't be a good idea. That I couldn't stay and cook you breakfast."

Any other time, this thought would have been out of the question. My job was to get in and get on to the next town. So, I treated everything with the same sentiment. That way, there were no feelings involved, no one got hurt, and everyone had a good time. I didn't like how this wasn't one of those times, but I knew that I had had enough of this conversation for one day. Actually, this conversation was too much for one year, especially considering that the mention of breakfast had reminded me that I hadn't had any. I was starving. "No one's stopping you from leaving. The door's right there. And don't let it hit you on the way out," she smirked and grabbed my arm before I could grab my pants from the floor.

"You know," she challenged, "for someone who was so opposed to letting me into your apartment last night, you sure do seem really reluctant to see me leave it. Care to explain?" her eyelashes were batting in a heavily exaggerated way, and I was really starting to regret not letting her leave. Since when had I turned into such a whiney bitch?

"Well you don't have to make a goddamn federal case out of it or anything, Green Eyes. And don't get cocky either, because I was just doing you a favor. I have to get ready for work anyway." She bit back a small laugh that shook her rack up against my arm. Then becoming self-conscious about being her only being half dressed, she turned red and tucked a few stray curs behind her ear.

"I don't buy that," she paused, becoming apologetic, "I didn't mean to make you feel cheap, Dean, but it's not every day that I find myself at some guy's apartment at 8:00 in the morning. Plus, I told Stefan that I would help him with something and it's going to take me all day to get ready for it." Downstairs, Mitch was getting ready for the day by doing all of the jobs that I should have taken care of by now: opening the garage door, switching on the "OPEN" sign by the customers' entrance, and tallying the money in the cash register. Duties that he would clearly bitch me out for neglecting.

"Don't sweat it. Mitch's gonna kick my ass anyway for showing up late." As if on cue, Mitch banged on the door, which given how thin the walls were, the sound travelled down the hallway and met Green Eyes and me inside the stuffy bedroom.

"Sam! You'd better have a damned good reason for not opening up today, and I mean that you'd better be dead in there, or else, you can consider yourself fired." Usually, I was up and at 'em two hours before the garage opened, closing the door to this depressing ass apartment and making damn sure that it didn't open again until it was time for bed. I had become a real nine to five kind of guy. The textbook definition of "Employee of the Month." Luke on the other hand, came in if, and when, he felt like it, refused to wear a jumpsuit, and spent most of his time reading porn and asking me a million questions about my life before Mystic Falls. He was a sweet kid, but he wasn't the most reliable guy in the world. Yet, Mitch still kept him on.

"Not exactly like I can just fire the kid," Mitch would sigh, "Forbes would have both of our jewels in a knot. Real ball buster that woman," I hadn't met this Sheriff Forbes that everyone kept bitching about, but I got the feeling that she was like every other cop that I had met: strict on the small shit, while completely ignoring the real dangers in her own backyard. Still, I couldn't see Mitch carrying out his threat to fire me, since he'd never had any prior reasons to. Didn't legitimate jobs give their employees three strikes before showing them a pink slip?

"I'll/He'll be down in a minute!" Green Eyes and I yelled at the same time. When Mitch left, she turned her back to me and put on a shirt, trying further to convince me—or herself, I was starting to suspect— that it was time to leave. But outside, a nearby store sign flashed red light into the grey room, creating a slow, lazy strobe-light effect that made everything move in slow motion. I sat deeper into the bed, trying not to touch her as she hooked the black lace over her chest.

Slowly, she turned to face me, lips parted a little, leaning into the light's sexy Doppler effect. Green Eyes talked a good game, but there was no doubt in my mind that she was enjoying how much I wanted her to stay. Screw that! She wanted to stay just as badly, "It would be such a cliché, falling for you after we…after spending the night…here." She faced the door and leaned her back against my chest.

"Sappiest thing I've ever heard," I agreed, ringing my fingers around her belt loops so that I could pull her closer.

"You're bad for me," she said between deep breaths.

"A father's worst nightmare," I agreed again, not caring that Mitch was back at the door, threatening to set it on fire.

"Mmmmmmm," her body went completely limp once I'd managed to find a certain spot on her neck, and finally, she gave in. Green Eyes, demure as she seemed, was wild. When I saw her at the Mystic Grill two month ago, my first thought had been of Cassie. How taking Green Eyes home would be the goodbye that Cassie and I deserved. After all, both women struck me as the type who would regret all of this in the morning, but I was wrong. Cassie didn't regret anything. She was soft and believed in all of that romantic shit. I wanted to give her what she wanted. Wanted to believe that slow and sexy with her was better than fast and hot with some bar skank, even though I'd never admit it. Green Eyes, on the other hand, was different. She had lots of regrets, one of those being last night. I knew that she didn't want to go there again. Hell, I didn't want to go there again. One Cassie was enough. But Green Eyes wasn't Cassie, and she didn't regret us because she didn't want it. She was Bonnie, and she regretted us because when we were together, she didn't want anything else. I didn't want to screw her life up with another mistake that she couldn't take back.

But four hours later, as she kissed me in front of the garage's entrance, slower this time, all she did was smile sadly at me and sigh, "You're going to be the death of me, Dean Winchester."

"Not a bad way to go out if you ask me," I winked at her as she cut her eyes and squeezed my hands. Luke, Mitch, and a couple of customers stared at her ass as she walked away from Mitch's Motors.

"Hey! Hey what the hell is everybody staring at? Get back to work! Now!" This was why I didn't like all of this public display bull. Now, everyone wanted to get all touchy-feely.

"It's about damn time!" Mitch snapped out of his trance and muttered on his way back to the office. I wondered what he meant by that statement. _It's about damn time? _"I see the way you lust after that girl when you two play cards after hours," he must have noted my surprise, because he explained, "Sometimes I forget my keys and have to come back for them. You're like a Rottweiler in heat," he laughed like this was the funniest joke ever, "Just be careful, she only just turned eighteen. And her dad's the protective type." _Tell me something I don't know._

Work was slow, filled with constant questions from Luke that I tried my best to dodge. But after his, "So, how was she? Wild? I bet she was wild? The quiet ones always are!" I dedicated the rest of the day to cleaning out the storage area in the shop's basement. The day had, for the most part, just begun, yet I was already exhausted. Not to mention the fact that I was still waiting on a phone call from Bobby. We had a deal, I would do all of the leg work: getting acquainted with locals, visiting historic places, via What's-Her-Name from Lockwood University— who just couldn't help showing me Fell's Church, the Falls, and a tomb where twenty-seven vampires were supposedly trapped over a hundred years ago—, while Bobby dug up dad's book and did some research on vampire species. But that deal had been made days ago, back when I had been hunting out of necessity. Now, it was still just as necessary, but I found myself wanting to hunt so that I'd be granted a distraction. That's where she came in. They always say, "Be careful what you wish for."

She sat on a couple of boxes in the corner; her long legs crossed and uncrossed in front of me, narrowly missing the wrench that I'd just thrown in frustration at not being able to clear my head. "My, my, my, what a temper you have. She must have really gotten under your skin," the brunette licked her lips and stared beneath her eyelashes. I had guessed that this was how she got Leather Jacket and Eyebrows off, but it did nothing for me.

"Alana, was it?" she sneered at the name.

"I think you mean Elena," she twisted her lips into a dangerous smile, "and no. Why as for Second Best, when the original's So. Much. Better?" So this was the bitch that had everyone so upset? I wasn't sure exactly what she was capable of, but the one thing that I was absolutely sure of was that she was screwing with the wrong person.

"You must be Corpse Bride?" There was nothing in the dark basement that could be used as a weapon, unless vampires grew a sudden allergy to cardboard and dust, but that didn't stop me from looking around the room just in case. In the mean time, the brunette took my distraction as an advantage and pinned me against the wall. Her eyes were sandwiched between long red veins. She was a strong broad, I would give her that, but if she wanted a bite, she was going to have to suck down a lot more than blood. Vervain was just one of the many things that Green Eyes had given me this morning.

After a couple seconds, the vampire relaxed her grip on my arm and sighed, "Sadly, not yet, but now that you mention it, that is kinda the reason for my visit," I stared into her cold dead eyes, imagining how it would feel to have her head rolling around between my feet, "They say that you're the man to see if I want to make a deal?" Two dark red fingernails reached up to touch the bite mark on my lip just before I moved my head away.

"How do you know about that?" Being this close to her was like sleeping in a coffin, and trust me, I knew how suffocating lying six feet deep in a pine box could be. This was worse. She even smelled like Death.

But obviously, no one had ever told her this, because she pressed herself even closer and whispered, "You're not the only one who's been doing research. Dean Winchester," she began to tick away the facts of my life with her fingers, "Eldest son of hunters Mary Campbell and John Winchester, and not so bad on the eyes. Although, personally, I think your brother Sam is the hotter of the two," This bitch was either counting on patience that I didn't have, or she was just bat shit crazy. However, no matter what the motive, Sammy was off limits, and I could wait to take her out.

"Is that so?" we circled each other, while I grabbed some spray paint and a lighter. Not the best weapon, but it was the best I could come up with under such short notice. I just hoped that she didn't see my hands working as we paced around. Unfortunately, she did and slammed me onto the floor.

Her hair scratched my face as she crawled on top of me, treating the side of my face like her own personal Popsicle. "Don't get me wrong, you're quite tasty, but as with most older brothers, you're a bit easy. I like a more challenging target. Plus, from the pictures that I found, I can tell that Sammy is quite the tease. And he's got that incredible little V thing leading right down to his…" she shivered and tipped her head back, porn star style. It took everything that I had not to snap her neck. Or at least try. "As you can guess, I have a bit of a thing for the young ones," she winked before jumping to her feet and sliding back onto the box. "Besides, you've been sinking your battle ship into that Bennett girl, and I don't like mixing breeds. Well, not breeds like that anyway,"

"Oh yeah?" I was never one to back down from a fight, but I also couldn't seem to turn down a challenge, "So what could you possibly say that would make me want to make a deal with you?" The brunette was pleased that we were finally playing her game. I could tell that this chick was used to getting her way, but someone seriously needed to tell her that this wasn't 1864 anymore.

"You and I are a lot alike," she spoke low and husky, and already this was turning into a long ass speech. "We're both lonely. Traveling the globe. Picking up little…souvenirs in every city, enduring the disdain and shame that comes with our less than virtuous reputations. When all we really want is the one that we love?" I tried to patronize her with smug expressions and eye rolls, but she continued, "Now, we've both found love in Mystic Falls, and like me, I'm sure that you will do anything to keep that someone. After all, we are nothing if not loyal, correct?" She waited in vain for an answer that was met with a question of my own.

"And you need my help how?" If my sarcasm affected her, she did a damn good job of hiding it.

"Damon, like you, is gorgeous, but unlike you, he's not as smart. Now, I've been working on a way to bring Stefan back to me, and the only thing standing between u—"

I didn't need to hear anymore, and I didn't care what she wanted. Maybe everyone else in this town was willing to babysit her feelings, but I wasn't one of them. "And what if I decide not to play by your rules. What if I kill you right here. Right now?" She bit her lip and leveled her eyes at me as if I were a child.

"You can try," her voice turned hard, "but then I will feed you my blood, kill you, and watch you drain your precious Bonnie dry!" Because Bobby hadn't called me back, I had no idea if her threat could be carried out. I knew that in order to turn me, I'd have to drink her blood. I wasn't sure if Vervain, could protect me being turned, but I couldn't take that chance and risk Green Eye's life. So I swallowed my tongue and asked her the details of the deal.

"I'll leave forever. Take my sweet, stubborn Stefan far away from Mystic Falls and never come back," she ran both hands down the side of my face, holding it in place to ensure that I heard her loud and clear, "but first…you must kill Damon."


	13. Russian Roulette

**A/N:** Thank you all for reading and reviewing. Reading your reviews makes more more motivated to actually finish this story. **TheSouthernScribe** there WILL most definitely be a sequel. No question about it. **Analise63** thank you for the kind words, I love these two as well. **BloodStreamOnFire** it makes me so happy that you were inspired by Stateless when picking your name. I love "Bloodstream!" And I'm pretty obsessed with this ship as well. A genius? You are too kind sweetheart. For that, this chapter is dedicated to you three. To everyone else, remember: alerts make me smile but **REVIEWS DRIVE ME WILD. **Please read and review (my goal is to get up to 50 reviews)!

**Disclaimer:**Yes, I own everything. And then I wake up and realize that I still own nothing. Ha ha. Only four more chapters to go (that's why the chapters are getting increasingly long). So let's get on with it shall we?

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Bonnie's POV

"You have reached Elena, I'm too wasted to come to the phone, so leave your message at the beep, and ahhhhhh!" The message, constructed at a party hours before Elena's parents died, rang in my ears for the thousandth time that week, making me angrier with every missed call. It seemed as though the only time that I saw her anymore was in my dreams. The same dreams where Emily berated and chastised me for not being able to "save her." They were also the same dreams that landed me underneath Dean on Grams's pink quilt, his mother echoing Emily's urgings for me to once again be the savior, and I couldn't tell if the warmness in my cheeks was due to the rage that I felt at feeling so powerless or the reality of how the man in my dreams couldn't hold a candle to the real thing. Either way, the jumbled thoughts were making it just as difficult to focus in my waking life as it was in my sleep state. _Damnit, _I thought and threw the cell phone at a nearby wall just as it started to ring.

I knew better than to expect for the caller to be Elena. More than likely it was Caroline calling to tell me that she needed help setting up the Junior Carnival. Every year, the junior class president, with the help of student council's lower officers, put together a carnival for the rest of the school on the day of the senior prom, and given that Caroline was this year's lucky president, it was her duty to make sure that everything was in place for tonight's festivities. Elena and I weren't on the council, but that didn't stop the flood of angry messages in my voicemail, all of which started with, "I'm serious Bonnie, you'd better get your ass down here and help me, because if this carnival is anything less than perfect, I'm blaming you," and ended with, "And where the hell is Elena?" Little did she know, I was doing all that I could to find an answer to that question.

Tea leaves floated alongside Elena's photo in a glass bowl filled with steaming hot water. The leaves, a mixture of eucalyptus, lavender, and mint, were supposed to serve as a calming aid. When Grams was still alive, I would watch her pour leaves into gallons of boiling water and peer over the pot's edge. "The key to scrying is in the tea leaves. They give you clarity, and once the mind is free of clutter, it opens itself to receive truths that we could never even imagine possible." Which is why I forewent the clarity of the water for the clarity in my mind, by adding an entire bag of tea leaves to the water. I needed all the tranquility that I could get, because if one more nuisance interrupted my search, I would surely kill that person.

I should have been bathing in afterglow. Two nights ago had given way to the best sleep that I had had in months. True enough, half of it was filled with conflicting feelings ranging from extreme fear at everything that had changed between Dean and me to the warm, tugging heartache of something that I couldn't yet put my finger on, but scared me even worse. When sleep finally did take over, it commanded every sense in me. The morning melted into a recap of the twilight's previous activities. I should have been like Caroline at this point. All yesterday, I was greeted by the blond's external turmoil over not wanting to be the first to utter the dreaded "L" word for fear of sounding too needy. Any other time, I would have told her that if she wanted to be in a mature relationship with Matt, she should be honest with him. No games. It should have been so easy. Instead, all I could do was shake my head in sympathy, struggling with why it suddenly felt as if we were in the same boat. Stuck out at sea, too afraid to use the paddle that would get us to where we needed to be. _What is wrong with me? Why can't I focus?_

"Calm down, Bonnie," Stefan stood in front of me with the glass bowl separating us, yet his mouth never moved. Drinking my blood had definitely had an effect on him, only instead of fiending for blood like it was his own personal brand of heroine, he could control fire with his mind and communicate with me through mine. Basically, he was like a vampire-witch hybrid, content with the fact that until my blood left his system, he held full reign over Damon. All week, he had been watching my thoughts and offering his silent commentary all while adding to the jumbled mix that threatened to explode inside of my head. Today, I was sick of it!

"What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?" was my mind's reply. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The strong, familiar scent of the leaves sucked away all lingering foreboding vibes, leaving behind a blank slate ready to be filled with answers to the questions I most wanted to know. "Where is Elena?"

Slowly the ebb and flow of the water pushed Elena's photo underneath the current, turning the water a deep blue. Smoky tendrils, swirled around us, causing Stefan to grip my hands tighter. "Is that supposed to happen?" he thought.

"Shhh!" I audibly requested and continued to concentrate on the inky liquid between us. At first the image was merely a white outline in a dark background. A negative of its true image. As the picture began to take form, I could barely make out a cave with hundreds of tiny scratches etched in the limestone. I squinted at the unclear scene.

"It's the tomb," Stefan thought, and if you asked me, he was starting to enjoy our telepathic communication just a little too much.

A figure sat against the tomb wall, covered in blood and dirt. The curve of shoulders and hips told me that this figure was a woman, and with time, Stefan and I could make out the veil of chestnut hair that spilled around her still body. Fear gripped me until my knees weakened.

"Bonnie!" Stefan spoke this time, "You have to keep it together. Elena's life may depend on it!" Somewhere further in the house, a telephone rang, causing me to lose my focus. The water was steadily faded back to its original clarity, because I wasn't grounded enough to give life to its magic. "Block it out Bonnie! Block out the distractions!" Screaming. Ringing. Heart pounding fear. They taunted me; said that I wasn't strong enough. _Damnit! I. Am. Strong. ENOUGH!_

"I-I never said that you weren't. I just said that you need to blo—" I momentarily broke our link to silence him with my hand. Scrying called for complete silence.

The smoke filed around the bowl again, first blue and then blood red. This time, all I saw was a face: pale features, a hint of once rosy cheeks, and eyes so blue they almost looked clear.

"You'll never get to her in time," he spoke, "I'll always be one step ahead of you." He laughed a maniacal laugh, fangs exposing the demon that he truly was. A small part of me, perhaps my last stubborn bit of sanity, could hear Stefan pleading for me rip his brother to shreds, gearing his legs up to run to the boarding house and handle the matter himself. But that part of me didn't exist in large quantities, and sadly, I didn't even blink twice at mentally rendering him unconscious and walking out of the door. "Sorry Stefan, but I warned you. Now he has to die."

If I had been thinking straight, perhaps I would have looked deeper into the churning water that colored the smoke golden yellow. I would have noticed that seeing Damon's face had caused me to unknowingly grip the table and with it a tiny plastic action figure, accidently extracted from Dean's car the first night that he drove me home. Without perusing the image further, all that remained was a tall man with shoulder length brown hair. His back faced me, eyes staring into an unrealistically yellow and orange sunset. With a clear mind, I could have obliged the Mrs. Winchester, realizing only later, how she wanted me to "save him." But I wasn't thinking straight. I just wanted this to be over. Once and for all.

The trek from my house to the manor was no easy feat. It took strategy, planning, and a dark enough sky that would hide me from the neighbors and blend in with the darkness of my intentions. He had tried to kill Dean; twice. He had put my father in danger as part of a message to me. And I was completely certain that he and Katherine were planning on hurting Elena sometime soon. Those were offenses that, no matter how late the retaliation may have come, I just couldn't let go unpunished. So, the journey may have been a risky one, but it was one that brought me face to face with my worst enemy: Damon Salvatore.

He sat with his back to me, wrapped in a black blanket, hypnotized by blue and yellow flames crackling in the fireplace. But I knew that he could feel me even before he spoke, "To what do I owe the pleasure?" Standing in the large parlor, I realized that I had no plan and no idea what I would do to Damon. I just knew that after today, there would be no more Damon of which to speak. "What's the matter, Witch? Are you scared?" My knees knocked together, rage making my entire body tingle uncontrollably. He forced himself to smirk, but it was half-hearted and fake, just like the sarcasm carelessly placed in his paper thin voice.

"I'm only scared of what I can do to you, and how the thought of your blood on my hands brings a smile to my face," he snapped his head up at the mention of blood, and before I knew it, he was slamming me against the wall.

"You know Witch, I love it when you talk dirty," the vampire leaned against me, half in an effort to keep me pinned, and halfway trying to keep himself from falling to the ground. "If it's my blood that you want so badly," he bit a crescent shaped slice into his wrist and winced heavily, "then how about a trade? I'll show you mine if you show me yours," he breathed heavily, for once not showing signs of mocking. I knocked his hands away from me, more than a little freaked out by the turn of events. His tone of voice was one that I had heard him use on Elena countless times. It was clogged with lust. I just prayed that it was only bloodlust. "Oh right, I forgot," he said, looking genuinely insulted, "I'm not good enough to take the place of your precious car mechanic. I wonder what Daddy would say if he knew that his precious daughter was letting some grease monkey park his car in her garage? Maybe I'll ask him sometime soon." Again, I was reminded of my initial intentions for being here.

"Dangerous game you've started, compelling my father to invite you in, Damon. But if nothing else, you're very cocky," he looked delighted to hear himself described in this way, "That was your first mistake."

"Is that so?" he snarled, mouth watering at my enraged, reddened cheeks, "And what was my second?" I smiled, feeling strangely calm, despite the fact that his fangs were edging themselves closer to my neck.

"Not having the sense to run." It was then that I realized how sunken in his cheeks were. Milky white skin hung from his thinning frame like clothes on a hanger. Any other time, I would rather have bitten off my own tongue than admit to finding Damon attractive. Now, I didn't have that problem. He looked even worse than Stefan had before I had let him feed from me. _This was going to be fun. _

"You don't have it in you," Damon taunted in that quiet lifeless voice of his. _Oh how the mighty have fallen, _I wanted to shout out loud. It seemed as if cornering me had used up his last molecule of strength, leaving him vulnerable for attack, like just the thought of touching him would turn him to dust.

"That's where you're wrong, Salvatore. I've come a long way from the parlor tricks that you're used to. Just watch." With that, the loose skin around his eyes started to peel away. He tried to shriek in pain, but the sound was barely above a whisper. A delicious sensation coated my muscles in that way that only absolute power could.

Next, the tendons in his hands snapped, one by one. Damon dropped to the ground and hugged my knees, "Please sto…sto,"

"But I'm just getting started," I laughed. Blocking out his muted pleas, I focused on opening a gash in his neck, breaking the skin until he bled me a river. "Isn't this your mode of operation; bleed your victims dry until the screaming stops?" He was lying on the floor now, bleeding to death for the second time that month. "Remember when you ripped my throat open? When you tried to do the same to Dean and that kid at the garage?" His mouth moved and conveyed something that almost resembled an apology. But he couldn't form the words. "Well, payback's a bitch, isn't it?" The wooden heel of my boot hovered over his heart. His chest shuddered and heaved, just as the boarding house's door swung open.

"Bonnie! Stop! You're better than this!" Stefan, apparently having recovered from the mild coma that I had placed him in, rushed to his dying brother. "You can't just attack him every time he causes a disruption to your life. How do you think he became the way that he is? At this rate, you're no better than him!"

"You saw his face in the water, Stefan. I can't let him continue to hurt the people that I love. Why can't you see him for what he is?" Stefan shot me a murderous look before rushing off in search of blood. A moment later, he came back into the room with a panicked look on his face.

"It's gone, Bonnie. It's…the stash of blood from the bank is gone. The refrigerator is completely empty!" I wasn't sure how this was supposed to have been my problem. Damon was a vampire. He would heal sooner or later, and be back to his vindictive evil self in no time. Much to my dismay. But according to Stefan, this was not the case, "It's not just missing, Bonnie. The blood has been stolen. Someone has deliberately removed all of the blood in this house," he racked his hands through his heavily gelled hair, and paced around the room. The only other time that I had seen Stefan so agitated, was when during his blood addiction days. "Without blood, vampires are as weak as humans. They're susceptible to harm, and the only one we know that would want to keep us both susceptible to her charms would be…,"

His words snapped me out of whatever spell that I had put myself under, and I flicked my wrist to set Damon back to the state that he was before I'd come to the manor. "Katherine's behind this," I whispered, "I should have known," Damon snarled tiredly and tried to rush at me, but Stefan caught his arm and threw him onto the couch. He was clearly reveling in his status as the stronger brother for once. "But that still doesn't explain why his face showed up at the tomb with Elena in my scrying dish." _What else could that possibly mean if he wasn't there to kill her? If he and Katherine had not put her there?_

"Have either of you stopped to think," he looked from me to Stefan, "that maybe I was trying to help her in your vision? Or are both of you just so quick to color me the bad guy?" Stefan grabbed Damon by the collar of his black button up shirt and held him inches away from his own nose, demanding that his older sibling reveal Katherine's intentions. When Damon refused, Stefan threw him into a bookcase and stalked over the fireplace, placing one of the metal fire pokers into the dying flames.

"Damon," his voice was low and deadly, "you have fully exhausted my patience with you. Now, tell me what Katherine plans to do with Elena." Damon refused again. "Why are you helping her!" Stefan screamed, raising the hot fire poker directly above Damon's leg now. I knew that if I didn't step between the two vampires, the violence would escalate before Damon's truth could be revealed.

"Because," Damon lounged in the piles of books that lay all around him, "she finally chose me. And I love her too much to betray her trust." Stefan was beyond livid now, but even still, his eyes reflected something more sinister underneath the hatred: pity.

"She is using you, Damon! She's playing with you the way that she plays with all of her toys. She's practically starving you!" His hands flew to his head, exhibiting an extreme case of inner turmoil, and suddenly I felt like an intruder or a voyeur taking advantage of such an intimate affair.

"You've always had a flair for the dramatic, Steffy. Really, you could take your act on Broadway," Damon rolled over and tried to sit up, but Stefan pushed him further into the pile of books. "She's not starving me. And you're just jealous that, for once, St. Stefan isn't the chosen one." Stefan was at a loss for words, and not because it was clear that Damon was beyond rescue. We shared a look that said, "He doesn't need to know that she was starving me too. It'll just be our little secret." Neither of us wanted Damon going off the deep end. One homicidal vampire was enough for one town.

We walked away from the boarding house in deep contemplation, but though it might have seemed like silence to passersby, it was anything but to us. We thought in tandem, reading each other's conflicting worries and answering them with some of our own. Still, one thing was very clear among the clutter: Elena was in danger, doomed to find imprisonment in a tomb meant for another, and we were going to have to do a lot more than scrying if we wanted to save her.

"Bonnie," Stefan scratched his head in a manner that I had come to interpret as frustration, "I just…want to…thank you for working with me. I never really apologized for what happened to Sheila that night, and—" a curt nod cut him off, but his eyes were still pained. For a second, I was touched that in all of the stress through which he was enduring, he had thought of me. However, I didn't talk about Grams for a reason. This ordeal called for strength: mind, body, and soul, and if I thought of Grams and all that I'd lost, that strength would crumble.

"I appreciate that, but this thing with Elena is hard enough as it is. Can we please just talk about something else?" I hoped that he wouldn't press. That he would act as acquaintances usually acted when the moment became too awkward. But as we walked through the woods, carnival music sounding off in the distance, I knew that casual comments on the weather were out of the question.

"Okay then, why don't you tell him?" _Way too personal, _was my first thought. But he persisted.

"Because if Dean knew that I was a witch, he'd kill me," Stefan chuckled at this. The sound was low and foreign, making me realize that I had never really seen him convey emotions other than worry. Amusement suited him nicely, but I wasn't too content with being the cause.

"It's not as clichéd as you think," he went on as if I hadn't spoken, "I wanted to tell Elena, during our first date. The night of the comet." _Yeah, well Elena's not a trained killer who'll burn you at the stake. _

Stefan smiled at me and crossed his arms over his chest, his mind protesting topics in which I had tried to evade, _That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it._

Mystic Falls High's Junior Carnival was in full swing. The school courtyard was transformed into a 1920s fair, complete with ragtime music playing on the speakers, a ticket man wearing a red and yellow striped hat, and a row of game booths that framed a sea of rickety looking carnival rides. Out of nowhere, Caroline came sprang from the night's festivities carrying a stuffed pink bear half her size.

"OMG, Bonnie. You will never guess what happened," I listened intently to her story, grateful for the distraction, "I told him!" Stefan, who was standing beside me, gave me an annoyingly knowing look. "Well, technically Matt told me that he loved me first. But then I told him back, and he won me a bear!"

_You see how happy Caroline is? You deserve that happiness too. Why won't you tell hi—_

_Because,_ I looked down at the bear in Caroline's hands to emphasize my point to the vampire standing beside me, _I don't have enough space in my house for a bear that big._

"Hello," the blond snapped her fingers in my face, clearly annoyed with my lack of enthusiasm, "did you hear a word that I just said, and…Oh my God! Is this why you couldn't help me?" She motioned to Stefan, "I cannot believe this! I expected this weak ass excuse from Elena, since you two are practically attached at the hip," she focused her attention back on me, "although technically, the last time I'd seen her was when she stepped out of the Cracks yesterday, and Stefan sure as hell wasn't with her then." A pit formed in my stomach. This wasn't good news. The Cracks was what the middle and upper class residents called the run down part of town that encompassed its lower rent apartments and specialty stores, Mitch's Motors being at the very center.

"Caroline," I gripped her hand tightly while demanding that she tell me what "Elena" had been wearing. The grip tightened when she described the girl's black mini skirt and matching lace shirt. This time, there was no need for communication, Stefan and I took off at the same time, unfortunately with Caroline at our heels.

"What is going on?" she screamed at the backs our heads, "This better not be another one of your Hocus Pocus tricks!" We didn't answer her. Not when we'd passed the Grill. Not when we'd passed our houses. Not even when the streets buckled underneath our feet, showing evidence of a darker part of town where the pavement literally split under the weight of the town's forgotten. We didn't even stop to answer her when we reached the garage.

It was late, much too late for the auto shop to have customers, which it didn't. But the hour was still too early for Dean to still be getting ready for our nightly games. When he looked up from the shiny black car's hood, I realized that he wasn't getting ready at all. He was loading the trunk.

"Green Eyes," he said surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Caroline gave him the once over: dark denim jacket, thin green t-shirt spotted with oil, dark blue jeans, and signature steel-toed boots. I had no time for her snide comments. Surprisingly, though, she had none, "So this is the guy that you've been keeping a secret," she bit her lip, obviously forgetting about Matt, "God! Look at the way he's filling out that jacket. And those jeans!" If this were any other time, I would have appreciated her shallow complements. But this wasn't just any other time. I grabbed her arm so that I could loosen her grip on my hand, blinded momentarily by bright lights, carnival music, and visions of her and Matt kissing, pink bear dangling from her hands. The vision was from 30 minutes ago. The vision had come from the _past_. Which meant that every time I had dreamt of or had gotten a vision of Elena, I wasn't seeing what would happen. I was seeing what _had already happened_! How could I have missed that?

Stefan paled at the my realization, his mind moving miles ahead of mine whispering silent threats of how he was going to "kill Damon and that manipulative whore!"

"Green Eyes, you okay?" Dean was right in front of me now, cupping my face in his hands. He made it hard to lie to him. Hard to stay put and not close the space between us. But I had to stay strong. Stefan's previous question popped into my head, _Why don't you tell him?_ The answer lay in the way that he touched me. Or more specifically, my body's reaction to his touch. It was bad enough that I barely even answered to the name Bonnie anymore; I was so used to being called Green Eyes, but I found myself coming completely undone with every blink of his lashes. Despite my strict plans to stay emotionally detached from him, I was way too involved to see him get hurt now. Because that's what telling him would have done, especially if Katherine really had been here.

It would have fired a weapon strong enough to kill him on the spot, whether its chambers were full or not. I couldn't stand for him to get involved in all of this. But if his statements, "What's wrong, Green Eyes? Because I can't stick around and play games. Not tonight! Unless it's quick." were any indication, then he was already involved.

So what more could I do, but tell him the only way I knew how? "Then how about Russian Roulette?"


	14. Allied Forces

**A/N: **I am going to thank **TheSouthernScribe **and **BloodStreamOnFire** at the same time because I feel like their reviews can be answered simultaneously. You two are so awesome, and I hope that I don't let either of you ladies down with this chapter, as I know that you two wanted Bonnie to _tell him_ (both that she's a witch and that she loves him), but really they are one in the same, and she cannot tell him one while hiding the other. This chapter will delve more into that issue. Also, this chapter may feel shorter, because really it's just a filler chapter. A little background info to make the story more cohesive. _A Million Ways _isn't getting the reviews that it used to, and I think (or hope rather) that it's only because both TV shows' seasons are heating up in a big way, whereas my story is still stuck between the shows' two seasons. For that reason, I've added a bit of new season stuff from Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries just to spice things up a bit, and glue the character's lives together. It will not affect the initial climax, which will be exposed in the next chapter. If you haven't seen either of the new seasons', don't worry, I don't reveal anything. I just use certain ideas. Like usual. As always, alerts make smile, but **REVIEWS DRIVE ME WILD!**

**Disclaimer: **If I owned either of these shows, I wouldn't have borrowed from their previous plots, and expanded upon them to fit my own. So let's get on with it, shall we?

ALLIED FORCES

Dean's POV

For as long as I could remember, Bobby was the only constant in my life, and he acted in a way that most believers credited to a higher power: he could always be counted on in times of need, though not necessarily when called, and worked in the most mysterious ways possible to pull a miracle out of his ass when I was losing faith. To dad, I was a soldier. A loyal follower happy to keep Sammy safe and out of harm's way, while he went on hunts for days at a time, then later, hustling the cards that we'd been dealt, slicing throats, and asking questions later. Don't get me wrong, I loved the guy, and somewhere, underneath all of that salt and gunpowder, I knew he loved me too, but warm he had never been. Not to me anyway. And I had certainly understood it. In this life, we were covered in so much blood it was hard to tell our own from the enemy's, but whenever dad was gone, Bobby stepped up to the plate. He made sure that Sammy and I had enough food to get us to the end of the week, and didn't hesitate to lend both his help and a mean right hook.

It had been that way for as long as I had been breathing. If ever I needed someone, Bobby was right around the corner, even if he lay miles away. Suddenly, there was someone who needed me, and unfortunately, the two didn't mix.

"What in the Devil has gotten into ya?" Bobby blocked the room's small window, yelling until his face glowed white and red. Twenty minutes ago, Green Eyes had run into the garage with Eyebrows and some blond chick close on her heels, catching me right as I was loading a wire cord with Corpse Bride's name written all over it into the Impala's trunk.

The minute she set foot onto the shop's raised concrete floors I knew that something was wrong, and not only because the wind had picked up, something it seemed to be doing more and more lately.

Blondie, the young girl standing beside Green Eyes, sized me up and rated my appearance, talking about a mile a minute and looking not that much different from a girl that I would have banged had Green Eyes not been in the picture. But she was, and despite the constant squeaking in her ear, she looked scared and in need of a place to stay. This time, there was no question whether that place would be mine, even if her friends had to come along. _I'll just deal with the consequences later, _I told myself, as I turned on the apartment's lights and sat her at the kitchen table. Little did I know, those consequences would come ten minutes later in the form of a very agitated Bobby.

"We are dealing with what might be the second wave of the apocalypse, and you sit there playing footsie with some googly-eyed cheerleader?" I sat at a desk in my room, looking over the artifact that he had dropped in front of me, wondering if the three unsuspecting witnesses in my kitchen could hear Bobby's disapproval.

"We weren't playing foot—"

"I don't give a damn if you were giving her open heart surgery out there! You know better to let civilians in on stuff like this," he was madder than I had ever seen him. And that counted the time he sold his soul to that punk ass crossroads demon, Crowley. However, calling an infestation of ruthless bloodsuckers the second wave of the apocalypse was a stretch. Unless there was something that the old man wasn't saying.

"Bobby, what was so important that you couldn't say over the phone?" He took dad's book away from me and flipped somewhere in the middle.

When he had knocked on my door, he held the small black book up to me, face whiter than flour and cursing, "This vampire business is a whole shitload more complicated than we coulda ever imagined." He set the book back in front of my now with that same expression.

**The originals, **it read,** are comprised of seven families of the earliest made vampires: the Kaywayklas in North America, the Aymara's in South America, the Fachris in Africa, the Feizis in Asia, the Kissans in Australia, the Ellsworths in Antartica, and the Petrovas in Europe. **

"So they're who we have to blame for all of this Twilight-influenced douche baggery?" Bobby didn't get my humor, so I continued by clearing my throat and asking, "What are we dealing with here? A bunch of crusty coffin sleepers, who've spread their seeds to each of the seven continents, looking for a good time?" He snatched the book away for a second time, and deepened his look from angry to full on pissy.

"Do you even know what this means?" He didn't wait for me to fill him in on the obvious: this had been dad's journal. A directory of all that went bump in the night. "This book belonged to Samual Campbell, your grandfather. It was passed on to your mother after his death, and then onto John after her's. Campbell went after a set of vampires who called themselves Trevor and Rose," this was surely one for the history books, but it didn't seem to have a damn thing to do with Green Eyes' and my problem with Corpse Bride.

"Okay, so gramps fought vampires. I'm not seeing the surprise, here." Bobby's face turned redder than I'd originally thought possible as he explained that gramps didn't just fight off _any_ vampires, he fought off a direct link to these seven families, who apparently hold one of the many keys to Armaggedon.

"Dean, the apocalypse isn't just one massive fight between good and evil. It's a series of rounds between every alpha of the supernatural world, in the orders that they were created, and the sad sacks chosen to fight them. You've already popped off the demonic alpha…"

"Lucifer," I finished for him, while rubbing my head in my hands, trying to get his explanation to make sense. "So Fangs in a Skirt is our alpha?" His eyes looked toward the door, then back at me, "No, but she's a very important piece in this messed up puzzle," his voice dipped lower, "she's the vampire version of Lilith. The alpha vamp created each original family so that they would produce an exact double of the themselves every 500 years. Your vampire, Katherine Pierce, is a double of the original Katerina Petrova. They were made so that the vampire line would remain strong even if the double wasn't a vampire. Killing all of the copies will release the alpha, and start part two of the war between good and evil. To date, there is only one surviving vampiric double left,"

"So, killing the bitch would do even more damage than good here? Great!" To an outsider, it might have seemed that I was whining. Throwing in the towel to a game I could have easily conned. But Bobby, as usual, had thought of a way out.

"Oh, quit yer belly aching, will ya? You've obviously had your head up this girl's skirt for so long you don't remember that where there's a will, there's a way," he placed a picture of a circle called the Emily's Circle of Protection. The back of the page held a Latin spell that supposedly trapped anything placed inside the circle. Bobby went on to draw a map of some tomb in the back woods of Mystic Falls. "Draw this symbol near the tomb's entrance, and then lure her to it in the morning. Alone!" he added this last part while looking ahead to the door. We both knew that leaving Green Eyes behind on this mission was the responsible thing to do, but what he hadn't counted on was the fact that she was already as much a part of this situation as I was. Plus, and I didn't say this about many people, she was a tough chick. I still had the scars to prove it.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to her out there, you know that. But she wants to come—"

He threw his worn baseball cap on the dirty wood floor and swore under his breath, "Are you that big of an idjut, or are you just under some kind of spell? Have you ever stopped to wonder just why she's so willing to help you in all of this? What's in it for her? Hell, for all you know, she could be some kind of monster herself. Lord knows, we don't need another Sam/Ruby, blood drinking issue," there was more that he wanted to say, but being every bit the caretaker as he was the disciplinarian, he realized that he had pushed too far and put his hand on my shoulder, "She's not Cassie, Dean. She's not Lisa. Or Sam. And being with her isn't going to replace them. It's not fair to endanger her like this," I shrugged his hands off, knowing full well that what he'd said was true. Hell, even I'd thought it a couple of times, but I sure hadn't wanted my worries thrown back in my face.

"Thanks for the psychiatric analysis, Dr. Phil, but in case you haven't realized, I'm not frigging five! She's coming, Bobby, so why don't you get off my damn back!" Later, I would wish that I could take it all back. Later, I would wish that I had listened to him. Yet, at that moment, I was pissed and he was stung, picking up his hat and storming down the hall, toward the front door faster than I had ever seen him move.

"Well excuse me for not wanting to see you bury yourself in blood. But one Dean Winchester funeral is enough for one lifetime." The book still lay hot in my hands when Green Eyes came up behind me in the doorway. Just from one look, I could tell that she and the others had heard everything, if the blond's gaping mouth was any indication.

"I'll take Caroline home," Eyebrows assured Green Eyes, "Then I'll meet up with you back at Sheila's," Green Eyes squeezed both her eyes as well as my hand. Apparently they had been having a discussion out here that was every bit as heated as the one I'd been having with Bobby.

"You know I can't do that, Stefan. I haven't been back there since…Gram's. And I definitely can't go back there now. Not for that. There's got to be another way." The blond looked back and forth from her arguing friends, bitching about how someone had better tell her what the hell was going on. They stopped their bickering long enough for Eyebrows to assure Green Eyes that he would take the yapping girl home.

"That way, you can ride with him," he said nodding in my direction, "and fill him in what we were talking about earlier." His eyebrow was raised in a _Stop stalling _way that reminded me of Sammy whenever he got into his Know-it-all mode. "Nice to meet you, Dean," he called before leading the cranky girl out of the garage that we were now standing in, leaving us to the hard part. The part that I lived and died for.

We drove in silence for the first ten minutes. Due to hours of poker and black jack, she and I had perfected the art of being silent together. It was one of the things that I'd grown to like about her. She wasn't clingy. Most women needed to talk and know that they were being listened to. Luckily for me, the few that actually knew me well enough to be part of my life, were just like me: mysterious and talked only when they had something to say. Green Eyes was the same way. She didn't offer more than was asked, and always kept me guessing. It drove me crazy, trying to guess what she was thinking. But at the same time, it was what I loved most about her. Tonight, she was just as quiet as any other. But I knew her well enough to know that this time, she had something on her mind.

"So are you going spit it out, or do you just want me to worry about you all night?" She looked over at me and smiled.

"I didn't know that you were worried about me," she bit her bottom lip, proud of the fact that she had picked up on another one of my weaknesses.

"Well now you do, so what's got you so quiet?" Her head cocked to one side, as she decided whether to answer with a sarcastic remark or give me the truth. "Does it have something to do with whatever Eyebrows was talking about back there? What did he want you to tell me?" Her cheeks reddened in my peripheral vision, which she tried to hide by ducking her head. I grabbed her hand before she could sweep her hair in front of her face. She reminded me so much of the past when we'd first met, but that night—maybe even before—the only one here was her and myself.

"Stefan's just worried about me. This isn't easy on our end either. He realizes that one of us could die tomorrow, trying to trap Katherine, and he wants to make sure that I tell you…that… I've fallen…" she yanked her hand back and took a deep shaky breath, "…behind on my end of a deal. Y-you know what?" she stuttered, "I'll tell you on the ride home," This was what I meant by her driving me crazy. But she was right, we did have other things to worry about, as a few minutes later, she pointed to a small opening in the woods. "Here," she pointed, "We're at the tomb."

My objective was to get in, draw the damn circle near the tomb's entrance, and leave. I'd lost count of how many graves and mausoleums I'd jumped into with the intentions of burning some demon's last remains. That was how it always ended. One way or another, a Winchester was diving feet first into some hole, hoping for the best. This time, however, shook me worse than all of those moments combined, and all because Green Eyes was standing outside of the sealed entrance, staring up at me with her hand opened wide.

"Here, let me do it," she said grabbing for the chalk in my hand, before drawing the protection circle on the concrete and slicing her hand, following the directions to perfection without even looking at the book. When she saw my look of dismay, she smiled sadly and sighed, "Mystic Falls has just as much lore on witches as it does on vampires," like that was supposed to explain things.

"Well, then after we stake this heartless bitch, we can flame broil some witches." It was supposed to have been a joke, until I remembered the rumors about her grandmother and how sensitive she was on the whole subject of witches and the supernatural in general. "Listen, Green Eyes, I can be a bit of a dick when I'm on a hunt, but I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories abo—"

"There's no grey area for you is there?" she said, looking down at the circle. Her voice was low and sad, "No exception to the rule? Isn't it possible that some of these things you fight are good? That they can't help being different?" I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she had to be so upset about.

When she and I had first met, she seemed to hate these things as much, if not more, than I did. She'd sat down at the Mystic Grill's bar, tipped her head back, and downed vodka like it was her job, swallowing everything but her extreme hatred of vampires.

"There is nothing," she had said all those weeks ago, sneering and smirking like a drunk high school girl trying to down her problems in an alcohol induced blur, "sexy about a parasite." And I had licked up every drop of that hatred, telling her things that she had no business knowing, letting her in on something that would kill me if she got hurt. I was nothing if not stubborn, trying to convince both Bobby and myself that she was strong enough to handle all of this. That she could replace Sammy in this fight, all because she had talked a good game. And that she had. Now, though, she was singing a different tune entirely, and honestly, her cold feet was a little disappointing. But then again, this was the reason that civilians were never allowed on hunts.

"Listen Green Eyes," I answered, wishing that we could hurry up and cover the trap and get the hell out of here. The circle, which looked like a bloody web, was starting to remind me too much of the pit. Plus, Green Eyes had drawn the damned thing so big, it was hard not to step in it. "I'm not going to lie to you about any of this. Witches, vampires, demons, monsters: I don't like 'em. At all! And maybe there are some good ones out there, but I certainly didn't get all these scars from Glenda the Good Witch and Casper the Friendly Ghost! So in my experience, no, there is no exception to the rule. You're either human, or you're evil. Period!" She looked stunned, but didn't press further. Instead, she focused on covering the hole with leaves.

"We'd better start heading back. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow." She mumbled without waiting for me to help. She didn't even seem to want my help. Her lips stretched into a tight forced smile that made me think back to Bobby's argument, "Have you ever stopped to wonder just why she's so willing to help you in all of this?" I knew from personal experience that some broads were just helpful. Sammy and I had both had certain flings that got caught in the chase and stuck around long enough to see the capture. Still, I wasn't so sure that that was the whole story in this case.

The ride back was just as silent as the first time, but the second time, it felt too much like those argument-type silences. The type that led normal guys straight into the dog house. So, I turned up the radio, trying to blast away the quiet. Or at least serve as a transition to another topic, "So, what did Eyebro…uh Stefan want you to tell me back there?" She shifted in her seat a little but continued to look out the window. The light drizzle beat down a little harder on my baby's paint job, and even though the rain couldn't get in, Green Eyes hugged herself tighter. A stray tear that I tried to reach over and wipe rolled down her cheek.

"Nothing," her tongue darted out and licked at the tear, another one quickly following in its path, "It doesn't really matter anymore."


	15. Beautiful Disaster pt 1

**A/N:** I really didn't want to split this chapter up, because it felt so much like cheating you guys. Like giving you all the calm before the storm or the good news before delivering a crushing blow (because that is exactly what part 2 will be). But Chapter 15 is so long, that I had no other choice. As usual, I want to thank my lovely **TheSouthernScribe**. Your review inspired Dean's words in the first part of this chapter, so thank you. I totally thought of you when I wrote it. **BloodStreamOnFire **(love that name!), I'm glad that you liked the heated convo between Bobby and Dean last chapter. It was so much fun to write. As was Katherine's revelation in BEAUTIFUL DISASTER pt. 2. Also, thank you to **missWinchester21** (I love your name too!). Okay guys, we are only 2 and a half chapters away from the end. Part 2 is the battle scene and it reveals some secrets that could end them all.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing, but the weird twists and turns of my imagination. Also, I stated in a chapter called DANGEROUS TO KNOW that there were two chapters in which I wanted you all to listen to the song. That was the first one, and this chapter (parts 1 and 2) is the second one. The song is "Beautiful Disaster," by Kelly Clarkson, and it was the inspiration for this chapter so listen to it please. Slow version. Now, let's get on with it, shall we?

BEAUTIFUL DISASTER pt. 1

Bonnie's POV

**_The sky was grey and cinematic, muting every tone around it in surreal shades of grey-blues, grey-greens, and grey-reds. A fog pushed past my feet, not exactly propelling me along, but rushing as if it were wanted somewhere else. Needed for some other purpose, and I was in its way. A stray pebble blocking its path. _**

**_An aimless chill settled over me in the bare yet gothic cemetery, as if I had nowhere to be. Because I was already home amongst the dry, dead leaves and elaborate mausoleums with no names. And the frailties of the bare trees. The darkness that lurked beneath the leaves. Leaves that should have crunched under the weight of my feet, but held their shapes as if the one who needed to beware of space was me. I strayed from that darkness, marveling at the architecture of dangerous looking angels with black wings and even darker eyes cut from weathered marble. They smiled down at me with tears of blood; all of their limps angularly pointing ahead urgently trying to direct me. Deathly tour guides, leading me to a clearing in the cemetery that stood bare, save for a single white headstone. _**

**_The sight before me was startling in its sadness and beauty, for whoever lay in the freshly pruned Earth was clearly alone, and yet I got the feeling that she had once been loved. Truly loved. Though it now, didn't matter, because it had led her here all the same. A crow pecked at the soft dirt, digging rapidly to meet the girl who lay deep inside. It's black wings flapped slowly with each movement of his sharp beak. I couldn't help wondering if perhaps he had known her in a different life. If she had been his in some alternate universe. Soon, the fog caught up with the raven and dug around as well, lifting with its mystic arms. I understood that whoever she had been must have been important, yet not from the mist's and bird's need to excavate her. No, it was the man standing between them that gave me that impression. He stood taller than the trees around him, shoulder length dark hair blowing in the same waves as was his denim jacket. He stared at her headstone for so long that I wanted to leave the security of my hiding place behind a far off tombstone, and comfort him. But I never got the chance. His thick boots crunched slowly at first. Then picked up in pace the further he walked, and he never looked back. Only crunched ahead in a way that my feet just couldn't seem to do. Straight into the sun._**

**_My heart raced now, and though I had no previous purpose for being here, I had to know the girl for which that strange man, who looked so familiar, had mourned. Around me, the trees erupted into human form. Men. Rich men dressed in expensive suits flickered before my eyes carrying briefcases walked hurriedly ahead of me, rushing toward the sunset as well, not stopping to acknowledge me or the lonely grave that was now right in front of me. And they didn't startle at my scream. A scream uttered upon reading the grave's marker:_**

_Bonnie Bennett_

"_Here lies the moral of a story. And it's warning as well, _

_He rescued her from Purgatory just to drag her to Hell."_

_1992-2010_

**_"Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him!" She screamed at me when I took off toward the sunrise. I knew that voice as well as if it were my own. I knew it just like I knew that she was the one sending flames past my weightless feet. She chanted her plea again. First eight times. Then eleven. And I kept running from her, crying, "I can't. Do you hear me? I can't do what you ask of me!"_**

**_"But you can do what _I _ask of you," Emily instantly materialized in front of me, halting my haste, "He is not your priority right now. You're only priority is saving _her_, and you _will_ carry out my demand," she looked back at my grave sadly, "no matter _what_ the cost."_ **

I awoke with a jolt that morning, all conflict from last night completely forgotten upon witnessing the sight of Dean wrapped in nothing but a dark green towel. He looked up from an open drawer and winked at me, "Sleep well?" There was no answer for the kind of sleep I had had the previous night. Or for the fact that I suddenly knew that the key to saving him currently resided in Richmond, Virginia at a motel called the Sunrise Inn, room 811.

That morning, his friend had come back, carrying a bag of food from some drive-through restaurant. Stefan arrived about a minute later, waiting for me to emerge from the shower at the kitchen table while the other two men ate as if this meal would be their last. I couldn't help thinking that it just might be. After all, no one here really knew of what Katherine Pierce was capable. She had escaped death plenty of times, from people far more qualified to handle her. Who was to say that she wouldn't trap and kill us instead? However, even if all went well, and we could successful lure Katherine into the woods, trap the vampire in a tomb meant for her, and free Elena from that prison in the process, there was still a very good chance that this meal would be the very last one he ate with me. And I sat next to him at that table, dressed in one of his sleeveless shirts—that, given my petite stature, fit somewhat like a dress when cinched with the belt of my jeans—resting my head on his shoulder in complete silence. He thought that I was angry over the previous night's proclamations, and I felt guilty for adding to his worry. We had enough on our minds to let a simple misguided comment come between us now. But all morning, as we sat like this, my head on his shoulder, our hands clasped tightly in together waiting for Bobbie to give us the signal to leave, the slip of paper in my other hand—blank save for an address—kept me quiet despite the regret in his voice, "I'm new to all of this," he choked out, "Cutting heads, I can do, but uh…this whole…touchy feely crap isn't really me," he took my nod as cue to go on, "I've seen things that…well, let's just say that the average man would have been scarred by now from the things I've had to fight. If not worse. So, maybe you're right. Maybe there is no grey area for me, but…," he ran his hand through his hair out of frustration. It felt like the end of something even though it shouldn't have, "I shouldn't have been such an ass to you. I know that you're touchy over this stuff and I should have thought about that before I opened my damn mouth." My lips on his was my only reply, and they kept replying even after the cue to move into battle was given.

He drowned in his dreams, an exquisite extreme for someone just grabbing his car keys at the door, yet still it was true. He was as damned as the situation before us seemed, but he was still more heaven than his battered heart could hold. The time had finally come for me to give him the burning note in my hand. Rescue him. His large frame backed against the door with me pressed against him, wishing that he had been right. Wishing that he really hadn't needed my help. Because if I tried to save him like his mother pleaded, gave him the address I'd been toying with tearing up, he'd follow it. And my whole world would cave in.

"Before we go out there, I need to give you something," they were the first words that I'd spoken all morning, and my voice was hoarse.

"You can give me whatever you want when I get back," he squeezed my hips in emphasis of his innuendo, grinning like a child.

"I need you to have this before we leave," I placed the folded note inside of his back pocket.

"Green Eyes, are you okay?"

I quickly wiped the falling tears from my eyes so that he wouldn't see, "Yes! But you have to promise that you won't open it until this whole mess is over,"

"Yeah, sure. There's just one problem," he grabbed a jacket from a nearby chair, "You're not coming," he didn't even give me time to protest, already moving on to the reason why he didn't want my help, "Worrying about you is going to be too much of a distraction, and I can't have the only honest person in my life getting killed." He kissed my forehead and motioned for his friend to watch me—or keep me quarantined in my opinion—before motioning for Stefan to follow him out the door.

_You need to find a way down to the tomb, Bonnie. We'll need your magic to seal Katherine inside. _

_I'm doing the best that I can, Stefan._ _When is it ever going to be enough?_

_Perhaps you should go to Sheila's house. You'll have to face it sooner or later._

Stefan had finally asked the impossible and though it only added to a long list of demands, I was no more convinced that I could comply with his requests than any of the others placed upon me. Stefan wanted me to embrace what I was, utilizing my powers and Grams's grimoire to the fullest in order to do what I'd promised upon her death: protect this town and the people that I loved from evil. But one of those people had informed me time and time again, that not only could he protect himself, he reveled in it. Took pleasure in killing anything that didn't fit his idea of normality. So, they both had expectations that required me to give up equal parts of myself. But there was no way that I could please them both. Unless there was a way to be myself while being someone else at the same time. Which was what led me, thirty minutes later, to an idea that I couldn't pass up.

In every good book, there's a part that catches the eye more so than any other part. For me that part was always the beginning. There was just something about a story's origin that made the action seem that much more intriguing. The grimoire was the same way, and I didn't need it with me to remember its first principle: The Principle of Similarity. The lesson behind this principle taught that in any situation, if a certain result follows a certain action, then that action must be responsible for the result. And that the same action would be yield the same result every time. So, say for instance, Damon thought that Katherine was in danger down at the tomb again. Under the Similarity Principle, it would be safe to assume that he'd try to rescue her again. Which was exactly what we needed to find the particular area in the tomb that Elena was trapped. My goal was to put that thought into his head. By putting Katherine into his head.

"I have to use the restroom," Bobby put his beer down and peered at me around the laptop on the table. The air between us wasn't exactly cold, it just wasn't clear. He hadn't wanted me there any more than I had. To him, these situations were better left to the professionals, not some eighteen year old high school girl whose cell phone kept ringing every other second. I wondered how he'd feel if he'd have seen Damon bleeding to death yesterday.

"Sorry, sweetheart. I'm not s'posed to let you outta my sight."

"But it's an emergency," I hated having to lie to Bobby, who raised a skeptical eyebrow. He seemed like a genuinely good guy. "Cramps!"

"Oh, uh…um…," he stammered comically for someone who was used to being around blood, "alright…but uh…make it quick in there." He took a long swig of his beer and then went into the refrigerator for another.

Closing the door to the small bathroom gave me a window of opportunity, albeit a very small window that was smaller than the real one spilling deceptively bright light into the room, but a window nonetheless. For a second, I wasn't sure that the apartment could sustain water hot enough for me to do an impromptu scrying, but little by little, water filled up the tiny sink and allowed for me to spray mint scented shaving cream into the scalding water. The foamy spirals were a poor substitute for mint leaves, but the familiar smell cleared my head enough to at least focus on the spell. I figured that if Damon could project himself into my head through my scrying, it was worth the try for me to do the same.

"Cambiat et Katerina," the foreign words swirled around me at the same time that her eyes replaced mine in the mirror. "Levant et Damon." Smoke curled around the darkening water. In the mirror, my mouth and nose narrowed to those of hers, while my skin and hair remained my own. Damon started to appear in the water before me, forcing me work harder to change my appearance. "Cambiat et Katerina! Cambiat et Katerina! Cambiat et Katerina!" A sharp pain went through my head, just before I could finally make out the rest of Katherine's features hiding mine in the mirror.

"Katherine, what's wrong?" Damon's face was barely visible before my blurry eyes. He looked around the boarding house, clearly wondering where the voice had come from.

"Project," I could only whisper as my soul ejected from my body dressed as Katherine, and stood before Damon, pleading for his help in the mansion, as my natural body fell next to a puddle of my own blood on Dean's bathroom floor.

"Katherine, where did you come from?" Damon tried to grab on to my wispy frame. "What's wrong? Why can't I touch you?" His hands went through me again, breaking up my pixilated pattern. I flickered in front of him, fully aware that the real me would wake up any minute, mission incomplete.

"I need you, Damon! Down at the tomb. I need you!"

"Who did this to you?"

"There's no time for questions. Just meet me at the tomb. Hurry!" By the time danger finally registered in his head enough to send him into action, I was already back inside of my body with Bobby's arms draped over me.

"Bridget! Wake up!" His grip tightened at the sight of all the blood that now caked my lower lip and nails. Not to mention the crimson puddle that just narrowly missed my flimsy skirt. "What the hell happened in here?"

"Nosebleed. It's just a nosebleed," which wasn't a lie. They didn't happen very often., In fact, the only other time I could remember having a magic-induced nosebleed was after I' unsealing the tomb. But whenever it did occur, that usually meant for me to take it easy. To do what Bobby was forcefully urging me to do and lie down for a bit. For the second time that day I hated myself—not knowing at the time that the feeling would become a mutual feeling in Mystic Falls—because I knew that I would have to lie to him again, gaining his trust enough for him to reluctantly close me in the tiny space under the assumption that I just needed to "clean up in here first." Apologetic whispers filled my lips in the same way I'd filled the window sill and echoed with each bare-footed step close to the tomb: one for Bobby and one for the lady in the flames.

When I reached the secluded pocket in the woods that Stefan and I knew so well, Katherine wasn't there yet. It had been Dean's job to lure her to the tomb under false pretenses that he would kill Damon and stuff him inside next to Elena's corpse. She had no idea that Elena was somehow still alive after being trapped for nearly a month with no food or water, or that we were here for her extermination, not Damon's. Much to my everlasting chagrin.

"Did you bring the grimoire?" Stefan stood against the tomb's wall, avoiding the pile of leaves under which Emily's Protection Circle lay.

"I won't need it," the spell and its deadly results had haunted me for so long that they were permanently etched inside my of brain. I could have done it in my sleep if necessary. Facing my fear of that painful memory; however, was a different story entirely. "I know what I'm doing. And please don't mention that or anything else having to do with magic or vampires. Dean knows about as much about you being a vampire as he does about me being a witch, and I'd like to keep it that way. For all of our sakes." He nodded his head in mutual agreement as the reason for our secrecy returned.

"Found the bloodsucking whore at the school where you said she'd be," Dean mumbled between bites of his half-eaten sandwich. "Now we just sit and wait for her to take the bait." He still didn't see me.

"We're in the middle of trying to trick a 500 year old vampire into falling into a trap that she should have landed upon over a century ago, and you stop for…is…is that a Philly cheese stake?" Stefan's voice took on a tone reserved solely for Damon. I suppressed a giggle.

"Nah, it's something called a Mystic Melt. Not bad, actually. If you ignore the funny aftertaste. Why? You want some?" Stefan ignored the offer and turned his focus back to the tomb.

"Unbelievable," they both muttered at the same time. "What? Nothing, you just remind me of someone." Their synchronized conversation ended as Bobby and Damon entered the clearing from separate sides.

"What have you three done to her?" Damon grabbed me away from my place amongst the trees and shoved me so far into our group that I would have landed into the circle had his brother not caught me.

"Green Eyes?" Dean squinted at me, "What the hell?" I thought I told you to stay in my apartment. Where's Bobby?"

Bobby ran up to him seconds later, out of breath, "Dean, we've got a big problem. Bethany escaped. I think she went lookin' for…" he finally slowed down enough to focus on the growing group, zoning in on me in particular, "You! You little—"

"It's okay! Bobby it's okay. Just take her back to the apartment," he leaned down until we were eye level, "and you'd better stay this time, or I'll carry you back there over my shoulder." I ignored the persistent shivers that his vague threat sent to my lower pulse points, along with the urge to bite my lip, and continued to argue with him and Bobby. Our heated protests completely drowned Damon's proclamations to "kill us all, if we'd hurt Katherine in any way!" They drowned out the crunching footsteps. And we never even saw her coming…


	16. Beautiful Disaster pt 2

**A/N: **Okay, here's the dreaded part two to Chapter 15. Please DO. NOT. KILL. ME. Tissues or stress balls may be needed.

**Disclaimer:** I own none of this. And after this chapter, you all may disown me as well. So let's get on with it shall we?

BEAUTIFUL DISASTER pt. 2

Bonnie's POV

"Well, well, well," her voice drawled in a way that was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, "if it isn't the Scooby Doo gang? Gee, guys, where's Velma?" the cat-eyed vampire came into view, wearing a black corset over shiny black leggings, hair coiled into her trademark waves.

"Get Elena out of the tomb now, Katherine!" Stefan lunged forward, momentarily forgetting about the circle of protection, his eyes shone hungry like black diamonds, even though he was full of my blood. _Watch your step, Stefan. You're inching closer to Emily's circle. And don't let Dean see your eyes!_ Stefan willed himself to regain control over his temper, but I could tell that he was only seconds away from losing it again.

"And if I don't?" Katherine arched an eyebrow in defiance at Stefan. Her leather clad hips switched from side to side as she walked closer to our group. It wasn't that much different from the way that she'd walked into the Mystic Grill months ago during my meeting with "Elena" or the way that she'd followed a post-dying Damon away from Dean, Stefan, and me outside of Mitch's Motors. But one difference between then and now was Damon, who halted her movements with pleas to free her wrongfully imprisoned doppelganger.

At the mention of the younger girl's name, Katherine rushed toward the two Salvatore brothers, stopping just before her foot could break the circle.

"Save Elena!" she mocked in an overly dramatic falsetto while folding her hands and fluttering her eyelashes in a manner that made her look somewhat innocent, "Free Elena! Why don't we all just stop time for _POOR ELENA?" _Birds scattered at her roar and the Earth buckled around her feet, but the five of us stood unimpressed. So she could crack earth into dust? I could have done the same thing with a little concentration. But she needed to think that she was in control for this to work. Our lives depended upon her over inflated sense of self worth. "Tell me something. Do you all enjoy being nothing but extras in the _Elena Gilbert Show_? Or are you reaping some of the 'fringe benefits'," her overly made up eyes glowed hotly between the brothers.

Damon was easy. She could break him with just one look. Turn him into a river of self-loathing and pity one minute and then build him into a powerful soldier the next. It all depended upon her mood. Stefan, on the other hand, was a different story. He was every bit as entitled as was she with a mean streak that suggested a previous life even more malicious than Damon's; therefore, it was safe to say that he didn't need her help at feeling relevant. If anything, she needed him to complete the set. He was the silent danger to her wild rage, and even from the death glare she sent his way, I could see that she was completely in love with him. Always had been. Always would be. Too bad it was a type of love found only in songs of the unrequited.

"I'll play any role she asks of me, even if that role calls for placating an evil bitch like yourself just to get her back. You know why?" Stefan detached himself from my right side and walked the perimeter of the circle until he stood nose to nose with his former flame, "Because my love," he tilted his head slowly, watching Katherine give in and try to close the space between them. Her eyes were uncharacteristically hopeful. She wanted him to say that his love for Elena stemmed from a deep seeded inability to get over her. I had felt that desperation rolling off her skin in rivers. "belongs to her and her only."

Dean grew impatient beside me, and I tried to squeeze his hand in order to calm him. It didn't work. "Alright already! Let's just push this rotting high society bitch into the circle and get this shit over with."

"_Alive_ high society bitch. Emphasis on the word 'alive'," she seemed thoroughly delighted to hear herself described this way, but Stefan wasn't as satisfied. He still wanted answers.

"You can stop playing coy now, Katherine. We both know that you're as good as dead in Mystic Falls. Why would you risk being found by whomever you were running from all those years ago just to kill Elena?" Her demeanor turned sour again.

"Please, you think I came back just for her? Sorry, baby. That's your game. Then again, I could ask you the same thing. After all, you told her yourself that you watched her for months to see if she was me."

"I told her that I watched her for months to make sure that she _wasn't _you," Stefan corrected.

"Semantics," she rolled her heavily made up eyes, "point is, I still crossed your mind." He pinned her against the tomb, resisting the urge to use his vampire speed and demanded again that she tell him why she was back in Mystic Falls.

"Oooh, so forceful," she was practically in heat, threading a hand in his hair while trailing the other down his chest and mouthing the words, "I love you." He rammed her harder to get his point across.

"Easy there, Stefan. There will be time for foreplay later. But to answer your question, I've been playing chess with the people in this town for months. But when Princess Elena here went out for ice wearing nothing but a trench coat, I decided to make my impersonation a little more permanent. With your brother's help of course." Damon had the decency to look away, surprisingly guilty.

She went on to explain that her original plan had been to starve Stefan and Damon long enough to weaken their senses of free will. "Starve a vampire long enough; they become nothing more than soulless humans. And humans can be compelled." It was only a matter of time before she convinced Damon to kill himself and Stefan to leave Mystic Falls with her. She smirked at Damon, completely satisfied with her ability to render him heartbroken after all these years. "It would have been so easy too, if Nancy Drew here hadn't felt that I wasn't Elena during our little 'meeting' at the Grill last month. Thank you for running in and accusing her of poisoning you," she crossed back over and stepped between Dean and me, "You gave me the perfect opportunity to escape before she could confront me," she faced me, "Unfortunately, she just couldn't resist involving Stefan. Took him right out of my hands, didn't you?"

"Well if she ruined your hopeless little plans," Dean questioned, dragging her attention back to him. She stared at him for a long time. Long enough to make my blood boil. "Then why didn't you just leave?"

"God you're so hot! Too bad you're not your brother." I wanted to rip her heart out. "Glad you asked though. Bonnie ruined my chances at happiness, so I figured I'd return the favor."

"What are you going to do to me?" My voice was steady despite the heavy pounding of my heart. Traces of red veins appeared underneath her eyes as she weighed her options. Ever so slowly, they retreated once she'd come to a decision.

"You're in love with him," she stated matter-of-factly, "But you pretend not to be all because my presence threatens your perfect reputation in his eyes. How sad is that?" She waited for me to answer, and continued when I just stood there, "No relationship can thrive without honesty, Bonnie. So I've decided to help you out in that department. Time for a little show and tell." The pounding in my heart increased to a full-body paralysis. _Keep it together Bonnie. She can't hurt you. I won't let her, _Stefan tried to encourage me.

"You stay the hell away from her, or I'll chop your head off and roast it," Dean rushed forward in order to push Katherine into the circle. Her foot teetered on the edge of the sphere, finally finding a home directly in the center.

The circle glowed red hot around the ancient vampire, who started shrieking. Stefan made a move to open the tomb, and Damon tried to help him. Meanwhile, the abandoned circle shriveled up and evaporated. There were no signs of it anywhere. And Katherine stood precisely as she had before. Unharmed and cocky as ever.

"Cute trick guys, really. But unfortunately, you need a real witch to cast a protection spell. More specifically, you need Emily. Now, if you're done with the games, I've got some tricks of my own." Before any of us could stop her, she grabbed Damon's throat and dangled him high off the ground.

_Do something, Bonnie! She's going to kill him!_ Stefan screamed in my head.

"Yeah, Bonnie. Why don't you show us _all_," her eyes flickered wildly, "what you can do. Come on. Don't be shy!"

"Screw this shit! Eat wire, you ferret faced bitch!" Dean ran behind her and dragged the cord around her neck.

"Wait, you can't kill her! She's the key to this whole alpha vamp thing remember? Vampire Lilith ringing any bells?" Bobby wailed.

"Well what am I supposed to do, huh? Just let her live so she can attack Green Eyes whenever she wants to? Guess again!"

Damon wriggled in her grasp, feet scraping lightly against the ground, "Wha—Why, Kath—"

"Don't think I didn't notice you slipping away in the middle of the night to come down here and feed that little slut," she cocked her head at the tomb, "Don't try to lie to me either, Damon! I could _smell _her on you!" She reached up to her neck and pulled the cord away. "Here, Dean. Let me give you a hand." In an instant, her other hand went around his throat, mirroring the hold she had on Damon.

_We've got to do something, Bonnie, or she'll kill them both._

_I can't! He'll kill me if I do!_

_And he'll die if you don't!_

Deep down, I knew that Stefan was right. If we let Katherine live any longer, she would kill them both. I couldn't have cared less whether Damon lived or died. In fact, some could say that it was poetic justice: him dying again at the hands of a woman that he had died for. It was what he deserved. But it wasn't right. And I couldn't stand by and let it happen.

_Go, _I gave Stefan the command to use his speed. To run behind her while I used my powers to rip each man from her grasp. Damon lay slumped against a tree, rubbing his neck. His eyes were torn. Heartbroken. Dean's eyes were unbearable, as he looked from me to Stefan. They held the same look of hurt and betrayal as did Damon's, but they also looked confused. He kept blinking like he wasn't sure of what he'd seen and needed to clear away the uncertainty.

"Now, Bonnie!" Stefan had wrestled a screaming Katherine to the ground. She lay on top of him, face up with her head locked in his arms. I looked around for a sharp stick and spotted one hooked onto Bobby's belt. He shook the disbelief out of his eyes long enough to give me the stake. "I can't hold onto her much longer!" Quickly, I stabbed the splintered wood into her chest and fell back as she shuddered and quaked. Her skin cracked and lost its color to the grey that overcame it.

"Let's see how much he loves you now that he knows what you really are," Katherine croaked. Her voice was as dry as crackling paper. And then she was dead.

"Good, let's burn her," Bobby broke the silence after a few painful minutes, "so we can start heading back," Stefan busied himself with freeing Elena—who was dehydrated and much thinner than she had been before the abduction. But very much alive—from the tomb.

"No need," I cut my eyes at the two hunters: one who gathered his lighter, and a younger one who eyed me wearily. "Incendio." Katherine exploded into a thousand tiny embers. _Like supernatural fireworks announcing a victory, _I thought. So why did I feel as though I had just lost something?

Damon rushed to the spot where Katherine was, clutching at the fiery ashes, "Nooooooooooo!" he wailed at me, "You killed her!" His voice was clipped, like he wanted to cry, but was strangely devoid of any emotion. "You killed Katherine," his breath was hot on my cheek, "And I will _never_ forgive you! But… for saving my life," Slowly a tear came down his face, "I can't thank you enough." Stefan and I looked on at him in amazement, as he walked away slowly.

_You know that one of us is going to have to watch him. Make sure that he doesn't do anything reckless. _Damon not succumbing to irresponsible was as unrealistic as…well people thought vampires were in the first place. Of course I knew that I'd have to go after him. But I also knew who I wanted to be there when I got back. Who was really worth chasing at that moment.

"So, were you ever going to tell me?" Dean's back stayed facing me as I approached to put my hand on his shoulder. He shoved it off.

"No, you made it pretty clear that you didn't like—"

"I sat there this morning like a friggin' girl scout and apologized for being such a dick, and you can't even cough up something as important as the truth?" He was screaming so hard that Bobby had to reach out and grab his shoulders. He shrugged him away too. "I vouched for you. I sent Bobby away last night, because of you, and the best you've got is 'You made it pretty clear that you don't like this stuff'?"

"I didn't lie to you!" I yelled.

"About which part? Because it seems to me like you're pretty damn chummy with that…what did you call them at that bar…leaches?" He looked from me to Stefan. "Or are you talking about the part where you told me that dear old Grandma was just a poor defenseless psychic? Guess you got the whole witch thing from her, huh?"

"Stop, Dean, you're going too far," Bobbie pulled him back again.

"Bonnie, let's go," Elena was draped unconsciously in Stefan's arms, and he urged me to go after his brother.

"You're right about me. I don't like the supernatural," he twirled the muddy cord around his hands, "But I _hate _liars. So was any of it real? Or did you and the vampire have a good laugh at my expense? Get the retired hunter to fall under some spell?" The words cut deep, and left me to bleed. "You should go with them, Bonnie. Before I do something we'll both regret."

I looked back and forth at both men. On one hand, you had a hunter. He was rough to the touch, but frayed enough to break. There weren't many people that he allowed into his life, and for obvious reasons. I wasn't sure what he was after. What he wanted from life. Or even what he wanted from me. But I did know that if I held onto him throughout all of the tears. All of the fighting, and the laughter. We could be perfect. We could be beautiful.

Then there was Damon. He was both magic and myth rolled into one; a monster only as strong as what he allowed himself to believe. Underneath all of the leather and smirking, there lay a tragedy inside of him with more damage than even soul as evil as his deserved to see. The saddest part of all was that even though he felt as though he was never enough, he was still more than I could take. But how could I do what Stefan wanted me to do and change him, when it was so hard not to blame him? I wondered this well after I backed away from the clearing to help Stefan with his brother. Promising myself that I would have that beauty later. Right after I handled the disaster.

Only, when I showed up later, he wasn't there. And really I should have suspected just as much. From the start, he had been taught fight and flight. Mystic Falls may have been his longest stay in any town, but that didn't mean that it was home to him any more than finding each other meant that our friendship was enough to make him see past that. See past what I really was. In the end, I knew that it would come to this. But, still I hadn't expected for him to leave so soon.

Katherine's blood was still wet on my skin and clothes. Her screams still rang in my ears. And it served her right for grasping at straws; Stefan belonged to someone else and no amount of plotting, hoping, and wishing could change that. As far as everyone else was concerned, including me just hours ago, Katherine had brought on her own heartache by selfishly aiming for something that could never be. But that didn't mean that she couldn't try her hardest to post-pone or even rewrite the inevitable. Hey a girl could dream, couldn't she?

I walked into the garage, bathed in a yellow light that glamorized and softened its harshness. It reminded me of poker chips, silent conversations, and stolen glances; happier times memorialized in the back of a red pickup truck. I ran my hands over the rusted metal finding it hard to believe that those moments were only two weeks old. Where had all of the time gone?

To the left of the large auto shop lay a glass window smudged with greasy fingerprints. Every other time that I had been there at night, the office was closed, dark, and silent. At that moment; however, only one of those attributes described the tiny space. Mitch sat inside of the office, staring down at a piece of paper, shaking his head. When he saw me approach, his frown lines deepened, and his eyes took on an expression reminiscent of the one my father used to don whenever he had bad news. The lump that I had swallowed earlier rose back up and rested in my throat.

He made no attempt to get up; just waited for me to come into the office so that I could hear what we both knew to be true.

"He's gone, sweetheart. Said it was time to move on," I nodded, forcing my eyes to stay dry, and knowing full well that if I spoke, the break in my voice would induce an even worse pain. Like I was accepting our fate.

Mitch had no idea what had gone on. For all he knew, a guy named Sam had come looking for service one day, earned himself a job, and then left months later with no real explanation. And no warning. Oh, how I wished that I could have believed in that. But I knew the cause. Hell, I was the cause. "Damned shame too. That boy was the best mechanic I ever had," this whole time, his gaze never left the piece of paper, but his next statement required eye contact, as if its words hid a message between their letters, "He sure is going to be hard to replace." Again, I shook my head, my throat throbbing. Vision blurring. I could no longer stand to look at him. His eyes held too much pity as if to say, "You poor thing!" And I was no one's "poor thing."

Silence hung uncomfortably between us, until Mitch finally cleared his throat and nodded to the truck's bed, "Left you a little parting gift though. Practically begged me to make sure that you got that letter before I went home tonight." I walked over to the bed and stared at the folded piece of paper. _Maybe if I don't touch it, I can pretend it's not there, _I thought. _I can pretend that it's not really over, because there will always be unspoken words between us._ Yet, curiosity eventually won out, and I sat inside of the bed, reading the note and pretending that he was there beside me, speaking the words that lay before my eyes:

**Bonnie, **

**Shit, I'm not good at this whole sharing and caring crap. Lord knows I'm not a writer, and as far as I'm concerned, I owe you no explanation. But here it goes anyway…**

My heart sped up, anticipating the crushing blow. His letter didn't disappoint:

…**The moment we met, I knew you were trouble. Your type always is. For a while, I ignored it, and don't you dare ask why, because we both know the reason. It's the same reason that you're still alive right now. You don't know how hard it was for me not to wrap that cord around your throat and take you down with the vampire. But doing so would have been even harder than not doing so, if that makes sense. **

**Every witch I've ever met has been a lying, manipulative, evil bitch, but for saving those blood bags, you're even worse. And I wish that Leather Jacket had killed me when he had the chance.**

**Luckily for you, your info on Sammy checked out. A life spared for a life saved. So consider us even. But if you ever give me a reason to come back to Mystic Falls, I promise you that I won't hesitate to send you to Hell where you belong.**

**Lo**

**Always,**

**Dean**

The second to last word—a feeling that I had been too afraid to admit to for fear of hurting him, a feeling that he had forever crossed out of his heart and vocabulary, at least where I was concerned—danced in blurry waves before my eyes.

"Hey, Bennett! You okay?" Mitch carried his girth over the rusted truck and was now shaking me gently as I silently cursed the hot tears that smeared Dean's angry words.

"Home…late…thank you," the words were a jumbled mess in my head, and I had to get as far away from there as possible. As far away from the concerned man with the worried eyes just like my father's as my sore legs and bare feet would carry me.

I ran through the dark woods with pangs of fatigue stemming from the overexertion that came with using too much magic in one sitting cutting into me. I was not Grams, and she hadn't been anywhere near as advanced an enchantress as Emily, but that night, I had tried spells that would have landed both of them in an early grave. So it would have been perfectly reasonable to believe that this was the only reason for my pain, but even though the thought, or the need for this thought, was reasonable, I knew better. The stabs of pain extending from my soles to my calves as I staggered through the deep and dark woods were only thorns and broken branches. Nothing more. Nothing less, and maybe it was at that moment that I finally learned my limitations. That I finally learned to see things for what they really were instead of the demonized and/or romanticized versions of what I wanted them to be.

The small house that I shared with my dad loomed in front of me like a bitter friend with arms outstretched, waiting to grab and remind the hopeful that dreams are solely reserved for sleepers. Taunting me to wake up, or else stay sleeping forever. _Perhaps, I'll take you up on that last bit of advice,_ I laughed at this idea on my way up to the bathroom, despite its lack of humor.

Aches and pains caught up with me as soon as the water hit the bathtub's porcelain walls. A muscle relaxer served as my solace, sliding down my throat and battling with the lump that already resided there. Pushing. Pushing. Pushing. Until the lump broke. It was reminiscent of how I had pushed Dean that first night in his apartment. Pushing him away. Pushing him to tell me the truth. Pushing him to go beyond his level of trust. Forever pushing him until he finally broke. And shattered in pieces of disdain all around me. I had to wash him off of my skin. The water's blistering steam rose up to greet me, and I didn't care that I was still fully dressed, I had to meet it. To finally find the miracles for which I had searched and waited.

The water rushed all around me. It scalded Katherine's blood off of my skin until I was surrounded in a filthy orange hell. It soaked through the white shirt and blistered. But it still wasn't hot enough to break the sudden fever that I had come down with. Or the pain rising and falling in waves in the pit of my stomach. I thought that I should have been stronger than this. I should have been able to push him away. Surely Grams and Emily had to have come across plenty of drifters in their time. But they did what I couldn't: let him drift away as he was meant to, unscathed and unattached. And I did what they didn't dare try: deadly spells that wore me to the bone.

The only sounds in the empty house were that of the rushing water around my ankles, around my waist, around my shoulders, and damnit if the tides didn't feel just like him. Hard and soft. Dangerous and tempting. Each ripple repeating one of his words, "Liar. Manipulative. Bitch. Send you to Hell," as if the letter wasn't sitting on the tub's ledge. _As if I hadn't memorized every word._ And I would start to feel again when knew that I shouldn't. They weren't good feelings that praised love lost over not having it at all. They were familiar emotions that sat on the chest and suffocated me, but even so, it took me some time to recognize them for what they were: worthlessness and grief.

Why should I have been allowed to live on, despite the splitting headache that lead to blood pooling from my nose, when Grams had been much more powerful than I could have ever hoped for? It made me question why I had to live with the pain at all. The deaths, the sacrifices, and the unsympathetic onlookers who demanded much more than my all had become too frequent. There wasn't enough space between each act of selflessness on my part. There wasn't enough time between the watery hiccups and hyperventilated sobs for me to even catch my breath, and when the water reached eyelevel, threatening to suck me under, I wondered if I should have just let it. Because I didn't have Grams, Elena, or my dad. Hell, even Stefan's voice had been surprisingly quiet in my head all afternoon. And it hurt. It just hurt.

Hot water scorched my scalp as it closed over my entire body, saving my face for last. So that was what it had come to: me, Bonnie Bennett, lying alone in the bottom of my bathtub after another major loss. It had happened the same way last time. It always happened that way. No matter what, using magic always ended the same way. In death. My head was spinning and my heart loudly pounded fresh blood into my ears; my body working overtime to reject an outcome that I had already embraced.

I could barely breath. Could barely make out the urgent rush of black boots against tile. The strength of his arms pulling me from the comfort of a watery grave. _He rescued me from Purgatory just to send me to hell. _I was almost too far gone to notice the rip of paper as he stuffed the deadly note inside of his pocket. Almost. But not yet. Then the feverish flames came over me. And everything went black.


	17. Take Me Away

**A/N:** So I think that I may have messed up the last two updates and they didn't go through. If none of you received the update email in your inboxes, then please go check out Chapter 15 (pt. 1 and 2) before reading this one. Or message me and I will fix the problem. I promise it's worth it. Also, this is for **BloodStreamOnFire** who wanted to see a Sam/Dean reunion. I promised that there would be one, and I hope that this chapter doesn't let you down.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Oh, and the song in bold letters is "Teenage Dream" covered by Boyce Avenue. Check it out. Only one more chapter until the end. Now, let's get on with it shall we?

TAKE ME AWAY

Dean's POV

"And then you knocked on my door?" Sammy stood hunched over a black duffle bag, packing his last pair of jeans and looking a little amused. I'd pulled the Impala up to the Sunrise Inn after a night of driving around Virginia. It wasn't that I couldn't find the place. I just needed some time to think. Something I clearly hadn't done enough of in the past month or I wouldn't have ended up in Mystic Falls in the first place. Green Eyes's note lay on the dashboard in front of me with the words "Sunrise Inn, Richmond Virginia. Room 811," written on it. Underneath the words sat a pale pink lip print.

At first I hadn't been sure that I would follow it. It wouldn't have been the first time I'd walked into a trap, and I wanted to make damn sure that it didn't happen again. Night came and went and I was still looking at that letter, her lips looking back at me and dammit if I couldn't still feel them on me. Firm and soft and just a little bit sneaky too. Biting when I least expected, and I would start to want her even when I knew I shouldn't. Would want to turn around, drive up to her house, and take her in the backseat. Cassie's favorite spot. But just like with Cassie, I knew that I had to keep driving. Keep putting distance between us. _No chance in hell is she going to take you back after all the shit you wrote her, _one part of me said. _Why the hell would you want a lying bitch you can't even trust? For all you know, she'll probably put a spell on you! _Not even the radio could blast away how much I'd screwed up, or how much I hated her for making me regret it, but I sure as hell tried.

Then, after hours of driving around in circles around this lame ass state, I finally got the balls to go to her house and have it out with her. There was no plan, no guaranteed apology, and definitely no promises. As I'd said before people promised lots of shit. Police promised that they could protect and serve, but I'd seen quite a few in my day get their asses handed to them all for the sake of fulfilling a promise. And the newest failed promise on my list had been Green Eyes's swear that she would stop hiding things from me. So, I wasn't going in with some load of crap that reeked of white picket fences and daffodils. I just didn't want to go out like some coward with his tail between his legs. Apparently, though, that had been too much to ask for, because the next thing I saw as I pulled up next to her house was Green Eyes herself, hanging all over Leather Jacket in his shitty blue excuse for a car. So I figured, _Why not follow her note to the Sunrise Inn? That way, if it really is a trap, you won't even feel disappointed_. _Because you're so damn used to it._ Only it wasn't a trap. And when Sam opened the door, he looked excited and a little guilty, but the one thing, he hadn't looked was surprised. It didn't sit well with me, but then again, maybe the whole vampire/witch issue was making me suspicious of everything and everyone. _Get a grip! It's time to shake this broad off! She's already moved on to the next._

"Yep," I answered. He stopped packing long enough to sink to the bed with his eyes fixed on me. I knew the kid like the back of my hand. Hell, I knew him better than he knew himself half the time, so needless to say, when he'd opened the motel's door that morning, I had already predicted that he'd grill me on why I was tracking him down instead of grilling up steaks and shit with Lisa, or whatever normal guys did. Even if only to cover his own ass so that I'd be too distracted with an explanation to ask for one of my own. But just because I thought that he deserved an answer to why I wasn't still with her like I'd promised before sending him into the pit, didn't mean that he was getting the true story. Not from me anyway.

"So, you're honestly telling me that you left Lisa and Ben two days ago, because Bobby needed your help with a hunt in Mystic Falls, even though he knew that you were out of the game?"

"That's what I'm telling you. And speaking of getting back in the game, how did you say you got out of the hole again?" It was his turn to look uncomfortable for a change, and I thought that it was a pretty good change in pace. After all, we weren't exactly new to this situation. In fact it was one that we were too damn familiar with, in my opinion, but if it had taught me anything, it was that it took someone really strong to pull you from the pit. When I'd first showed up on Bobby's doorstep after clawing my way up from the shallow grave he'd buried me in, he put me through the ringer. By the time that he finally realized I was really me and not some shapeshifter-demon hybrid, I'd nearly lost a pint of blood. Now, I didn't want to make the guy cut himself with a silver knife just to prove that he was real, but if he didn't start talking soon I knew I wouldn't have many other choices.

"I didn't," he tried to go back to packing, but I grabbed his bag before he could. No way was he getting out of this one. "Look, you're not going to want to hear it."

"Try me, because trust me, I'm used to bad news by now." He rolled his eyes and sat back down. "Come on, dude. It can't be that bad."

"Fine…the one who pulled me out was…mom," the water that I'd just taken a swig of went down the wrong way and I choked. He didn't look so well either as I asked him to explain. "I don't know what more you want me to say. It's all…blurry. I mean, one minute I'm hanging from some type of meat hook, feeling like I'm about to die for good, and then mom shows up. Said something about me needing to come back and help you, because the girl that she'd asked wasn't going down the right path."

"And you just follow her blindly? You didn't think to check and see if she was a demon or something?" He stopped fidgeting long enough to look up at me with a frown.

"What in the hell, no pun intended of course, was I supposed to do to her? Throw holy water in her eyes? News flash, there wasn't a whole lot of it going around. And even if there was something I could have done, I wouldn't have."

"Yeah, and why the hell not!" He was being naïve if he honestly thought that a demon wouldn't use mom as a meat suit just to pull him up and mess with his head.

"Because it was mom, Dean. She looked the same way she did in pictures and pulled me out in a flash of white light. Then I wake up yesterday with a splitting headache and the memory of some weird, bizarre dream. Of a girl,"

"Well be a little more careful next time. People aren't always what they say they are," his concern deepened, and I knew that I'd said too much, so I quickly changed the subject, "So you say you had a dream about some girl? Ooh, was it the one where we're fighting ware wolves and then out of nowhere they all turn into that chick from Oktoberfest?" He had gone to the small bathroom to grab his toothbrush once we'd starting talking about his dream. Now, he stuck his head through the doorway in disgust. "Or maybe that girl with the providences for you." He laughed quietly.

"I think you mean _provenances_, for one. And secondly, no, that's not the kind of dream I was talking about. This one felt more…real. Like a sign."Clearly, he hadn't ever had the kind of dream that I'd been talking about, because let me tell you, they felt just a real.

To him I just said, "Alright pointdexter, what was your dream about?" We gave the room a final once-over to make sure that he hadn't left any of his belongings: a bottle of water, a toothbrush and the jeans he'd packed, in the hotel, neither one of us talking until we were locked in the car and pulling out of the parking lot.

"Do you smell that?" He wrinkled his nose. I knew the smell. Shit, half of my clothes smelled like it by now, but I asked anyway just to make conversation. "I don't know. It's like…incense and…flowers."

"I got a tune up, so they must have put in some air freshener." He looked at the lack of air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, making his normal smart ass comments about how surprised he was that my OCD would actually let someone else have control over my car. "Why don't you just can it and tell me about the stupid dream, will ya?" He adjusted the seat so far back he was practically sitting in the back seat. Just like he always sat. I'd seen the passenger seat lean like that for nearly five years, yet after one frigging month it didn't look right. It was too far back. The seat wasn't high enough. There wasn't a mass of curls falling between the gap where our shoulders sat apart.

"I was in this graveyard, standing at the foot of some girl's grave. Bonnie Bennett, I think the marker said, and there was this strange bird scraping at the ground," it was still daytime, but the clouds didn't let any sun in. The sky darkened in the same way that my mood had after hearing her name. My hands gripped harder onto the steering wheel. "After a while I walked off, but I could still hear her voice.'

"The girl's?" It was just a dream. There was no reason for me to be getting all worked up, but…

"No, well, I mean yeah I think that she screamed or something. But I also heard mom's voice screaming something like, 'free him,' or 'save him'." The wheels made a sharp turn right before I cut the engine and slammed the door. Sammy caught up to me in a couple of strides, his hand shooting out and grabbing by the shoulder before I could enter the dive bar. "Are you okay? Because I know that seeing me alive and knowing that mom was the one who pulled me out must be a shock, but—"

"We're going to be on the road for a while," his eyebrows creased.

"Where're we going?"

"Well, I thought we'd travel around a bit. Go to a game someplace." _Get as far from Virginia and this conversation as possible. _"So you might wanna eat first," and then I muttered, "And I need a drink."

Inside the small dive bar, there were chairs and tables were centered between the wooden bar on end side and a small stage at the other. I sat at the bar with Sam while he ordered a club sandwich and a beer and watched a couple of roadies set up speakers on the stage. The singer, a girl with tanned skin and a sparkly tongue ring tore her attention from her sound crew and walked over to us.

"Here for the show?" she asked, tongue ring bobbing up and down in her mouth.  
"Wasn't planning on it," Sam gave me a strange look.

"Well, maybe you should," then she leaned over so that her tits brushed against my arm and whispered lowly—but not so low that Sam couldn't hear—in my ear, "Then maybe we can put on a little show of our own, afterwards," she smelled like smoke and hairspray, cocking her head to one side and positioning the stud in her tongue between the small gap in her teeth. She was tempting, but I wasn't in the mood. And after telling her so, she smiled like it wasn't that big of a deal, like there were plenty of guys who would love to take her home and that I came a dime a dozen. She was probably right on all accounts. "Well if it's all the same, I hope you two stay for the show." Then she headed back up to the stage, leaving me with a very stunned Sam who watched my every move.

"What? Can't I just have a drink with my brother in peace? I haven't seen you in five months for Christ's sake!" I took a final swig of my drink and ordered another.

"You know, when you're down there with all the pain and the screams and blood, there's barely even enough time to breath let alone think," he was talking as if I hadn't gone through the same shit two years ago.

"Is there a point behind this?"

He went on like I hadn't said a word, "But you can't just act blindly either. Not when one move can literally unleash hell. Again."

"Yeah?" the bartender set his club sandwich in front of him, and I immediately regretted not ordering something as well.

"So your senses get sharp, you know? You start to notice your surroundings more, zone in on little stuff that you probably wouldn't have noticed before. Even for us." I had a pretty good idea where this was going, so I decided that to order a plate of hot wings after all. I wasn't going to be blindsided and hungry.

"So where we going with this Mr. Sensitive to His Surroundings?" Clearly, he wasn't in the mood for jokes, if the frown on his lips was any indication.

"Bonnie Bennett wasn't just some random girl from my dreams was she?" When I didn't say anything, he pressed harder, pissing me off, "I saw the note, Dean. The one on your dashboard with the pink lip print. Who was she?" I cancelled the chicken wings just as he finished his sandwich. It was time to leave. Or I would end up causing some serious damage to the bar.

"Nobody. Now can we just drop this?" He watched me put my jacket back on and asked again. "Dammit Sammy! Just drop it!" The outburst was followed by the stool crashing loudly to the ground. Every head in the bar—not that there were many, just the bartender, roadies, and the band—turned back to me, wanting to see what the commotion had been about and if I was going to pick the chair up. I had to get out of there. Sammy followed, muttering something about how I always got like this whenever I "got my heart broken." It only served to piss me off even more.

"You got something else to say?" I asked him over the roof of the car. He ignored me and opened the door, choosing silence as his weapon for the next two hours.

Finally, we approached the state line, and with Virginia, went its classic rock radio station. Rain poured outside mixing with the static on the airwaves until a West Virginia pop station situated itself. The song was one of those slow piano covers that made the regular song sound less douchey. Not that I had wanted to hear this shit either, but then a man started singing and the words sounded so familiar. Just like the first night I'd heard it: rain pouring, heat blasting, car smelling of incense and that flower/berry shampoo. Yet, at the same time, different.

**I'ma get your heart racing **

**If that's what you need**

**In this teenage dream tonight.**

**Let your rest your head on me.**

**If that's what you need.**

**In this teenage dream tonight.**

**Tonight…**

Sammy reached out to turn the channel, but I stopped him with a look. He settled back down, looking out the window and muttered, "She must have been some kind of girl."Shortly after, he chuckled.

"What?" He continued to laugh a little longer before answering.

"I thought you said you wouldn't come looking for me if I ever took off again?" I remembered the first time I made that statement. We had just gotten into a huge argument. Over what I couldn't tell you, but when we'd finally met up and hunted whatever we'd been after at the time, I told him that I'd never come looking for him again. That if he took off, he could consider himself staying there, because I sure as hell wasn't searching for him. Of course, he knew that I hadn't meant it. I'd have gone to hell myself looking for the kid if Death hadn't made me promise not to. But him mentioning it now brought back old times, and made me regret how shitty I'd been treating him.

"Yeah, well you're my brother," it was the only thing I could say besides, "It's really good to have you back, Sammy."

"It's good to be back," he smiled, adding, "Jerk."

"Bitch." And then we screamed along to radio, christening the slick and dark country highway with Blue Oyster Cult's "Take Me Away."


	18. Mercy On Me

**A/N: **One day, during the final days of summer break, I awoke with an idea for a poem about a man who comes into a bar and changes a girl's life. I could never find the words to make that poem come to life, but the statement, "He had a million ways to send me to hell, and that summer he tried every single one of them," just wouldn't go away. Later that night, I wrote Chapter 1, "Radar." I never thought that it would be received so well or that I'd have as many reviews, but I am grateful to all of you: **InkShaper**, **cwluvr**, **KeaNote**, **MinaFTW**, **JClayton**, **analise63**, **Candeygirl490s**, **BloodStreamOnFire**, the one reader who has seen this story from beginning to end **TheSouthernScribe**, and my newest reader **XwinchesterX**. Not to mention everyone who added _A Million Ways _to their alerts. Thank you all so much. You don't know how much it means to me to have you all as readers (and yes, there will a sequel coming in early December) Kisses! Mwah!

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing, and I'm not really good at "steamy" scenes, which is why I rarely write them. Much as I love lemons. But this chapter has one (it's more of a lime, actually). It's the hidden chapter 11 scene. And the title is a song is by Christina Aguilera. So without further ado, here's the final chapter of _A Million Ways to Send Me to Hell_. Let's get on with it shall we?

MERCY ON ME

Bonnie's POV

"That's a great story and all, Professor Bennett, but I still don't really see your reasoning for hating Mystic Falls so much. Nor do I understand your criticism on my _Witches of Mystic Falls: Myth Versus Legend _paper," Reny Lewis spoke from her seat next to me at the bar. She was an impetuous young woman—a freshman in college and an anthropology and folklore major at Lockwood University. The same university at which I now taught under the Shelia Bennett Scholarship Restoration Foundation. Reny, I had begun to suspect, was not only in need of anger management, but was also a witch. That suspicion had been confirmed a few days ago, when her hand accidently brushed against mine while turning in her term paper.

She wasn't like other girls her age. She didn't wear makeup. She didn't have boyfriends, unless you counted the stocky blond boy with whom she seemed attached at the hip. And above all, she didn't just think of memories after they'd passed. She saw them before they happened. On her skin, I could see a younger version of herself within a group of girls surrounding an ancient spell book. I could see the pact that they'd made to stop practicing magic after causing so much destruction. And worst of all, I could see, was the visions, the countless visions from the future that threatened to haunt her every minute of the day. Whether she invited them to or not.

Still, the realization that her vision of my hasty caller had been correct, had surprised me beyond belief when the vibrating at my hip announced the impatience of one so desperately in need of constant attention. Shock must have registered on my face, because her next words issued a warning, "It's not the caller on your phone that you should be worried about," her voice was stressed and surprisingly husky for such a petite young woman, "it's the one you'll soon find at your door. And no," she added sadly before I could question the validity of her visions, "they're never wrong." Then she looked around making sure that the other students waiting to turn in their papers hadn't heard her declaration and hurried out the door to catch up to the forever worrisome Daniel, her best friend.

"Ms. Lewis," I spoke carefully so that she would understand, "your paper was very interesting and at times even compelling. I agree with your theory that history seems to have turned its back upon the witches of Mystic Falls and have completely ignored their involvement in the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s, but your argument that the victims of those trials should either have hidden their powers or used them in full force to, how did you put it, 'kick some ass,' is completely narrow minded," the temperamental young witch ran her copper colored hands through her pale blond pixie haircut, ready to protest, but I continued to explain, "Your paper has no depth. It suggests that witches are not human. That they do not have consequences for which they must take responsibility. Or that their lives are not made complicated by their relationships. It is easy to say that the first victim of those trials should never have fallen in love with a witch hunter's son, because you have never felt that. But as you will undoubtedly find out soon enough, a witch's powers are tied to her emotions. She can try to ignore her destiny, but life will always catch up to her."

"But you weren't there, so what's your reason for hating Mystic Falls so much?"

I sighed, wishing that my story had been enough of a reason.

"Yeah, Professor B.," another one of my female students, Felicia, walked up to the bar and in a flesh colored mini dress with black thigh boots and ordered herself a whiskey on the rocks. _Just like he did on the fateful that changed my life forever. _I shook my head at their words. Or maybe it was at the way Reny's knees kept knocking against mine, reminding me of once upon a time. "What could you possibly have to hate about this place? Especially when I always see that hottie driving you to and from the university."

"You know, there's more to life than men, Felicia. Maybe Professor Bennett doesn't like riding around in some jackass's car like a little trophy." Reny was getting annoyed at the other student's lack of feminism.

"Well, all I'm saying is that for a guy like that, I'd take pleasure in riding—"

"Oh shut up you dirty slut! You'd ride anything with a pulse!" Their bickering made me nostalgic. They somewhat reminded me of Elena and Caroline. Alcohol-induced versions of course.

"Ladies, you still are not seeing the big picture. In Mystic Falls, history finds a way of repeating itself, and if you're not careful," I focused my eyes strictly on Reny for the last statement, "you may end up reliving the past." Her eyes were stubborn, still doubting me. I slapped the bar in order to summon the bartender's attention and keep my original promise to her, "She'll have a virgin Shirley Temple. On me," Then I walked out of bar, recalling in vivid detail seven of the million ways that Dean had damned me that summer, while the two inquisitive young women—one a witch, and the other a lucky girl who will hopefully never know the horrors of the supernatural—screamed at my back in unison, "When did he send you to Hell?"

Seven crimes we committed. Seven of the sweetest and deadliest sins stood out from a million others. One for every year that had passed between us, separating then from now. Seven secrets that only he and I will ever know…

**-THEN-**

_We were riding, literally and metaphorically, in the fast lane of a highway headed straight to Abbadon, seven vices at a time._

Wanting him was greedy, and I was never the type of girl to live in excess. After all, "she who always asks for more, is never satisfied with that which she already owns." It was the first rule of being a witch, and Grams, who had taught me that lesson long before I found out about my powers, constantly reminded me not to be blinded by greed and gluttony.

"When all that you wish for is just a blink away, morals go a long way into differentiating the good from the evil. Remember that Bonnie," she would say, as if she could see through my eyes, to this very moment, and I had followed her advice religiously. Until now.

I already had his friendship. He'd already thawed me out, and let me in more than even he had thought possible. He trusted me not to abandon him, and accepted me back when I almost had. He took my word at face value, believing that I would never betray him. And above all else, he was honest. Even throughout his whole "Sam Johnson" lie, he had always let me know that there was a part of him that I could never have. That there were many pieces of him that I would never hold.

I knew all of this, and frankly, I should have been satisfied just to have some of him. Grams was a witch, and one of the best. From her, I learned the severity of staying true to what was right. And at that moment, keeping his faith in me, that I was merely a normal girl who didn't care that he'd just confessed to being a slayer, was the right thing to do. If I had told him about me, it would only have complicated things. Put a lot of people that I loved in danger. Maybe even killed off that final piece of hope for humanity that he was holding onto. And what good was going to war, when we were on the same team?

No, the ache for prodigality was really just a spoiled need to overindulge in more than what was offered to me. Perhaps even more than he knew he could give. But right then, I didn't care if I had to take him by force. I wanted it all.

His kisses, on my lips, my neck, my chest, and my hips, were easily comparable to the whiskey that he drank: hard and strong and burned all the way down. But even though the sting singed my skin, I drank him in deeper and deeper, finding that I loved the way it hurt.

Like whiskey, he was more intoxicating when consumed in one swallow. He flowed more quickly through the bloodstream that way. Got me drunker faster. But I wasn't satisfied with mere inebriation. I wanted to be filled entirely.

Unfortunately, pride wouldn't let my back arch into his touch. And it was such a shame, that Pride. It's what keeps us all alive, and in most cases, it's what keeps us from living. Because, in that moment, I was living in discontent, hiding behind a girl settled upon gritting her teeth; that was too stubborn to rake her nails down his back in long, painfully anguished strides all because she didn't want to lose control.

_It's all in your head, Bonnie. All of the heat, the passion, and the desire to scream him out is all in your head._ This is what I wanted to believe. That it wasn't truly him causing the tremors. That his fingertips on my skin, mirroring the same motion on my inner thigh as his tongue was on the flesh of my stomach, were only having an impact on me, because that's where I most wanted him to be at that moment. Because I could already feel him there, silently pleading that he, like Stefan, could hear my thoughts and would continue his journey further south. I wanted so badly to believe that this was just another situation of which I was in control, because if I let him take the credit, my body would always react to him. And I could fall for him. I really could.

Yet, I could feel my mouth betraying me as it whispered broken pleas for him to move his hands just two inches higher. Or maybe it whispered for him to move his mouth two inches lower. Either way, my only response was a crooked grin followed by a hoarse croak, "I've got a better idea," before he followed his path of fiery kisses back up to my neck, centering us like opposite pieces of a tight fitting puzzle. And in one motion, he connected those pieces, stretching and molding.

"One last chance to back out," he said into my hair, because with my arms wrapped so tightly around his neck, my hair was the only part of me that his upper half had access to. His voice was tortured and indecisive like anyone who was way too far along in bliss to even think of pulling back now; his question was clearly an afterthought. Something that he had meant to ask earlier, probably when all that we had done was lie in bed and stare at one another. Rationally, I knew that, if this had been just another random tryst, he wouldn't have thought twice about our actions. Logic assured me that his concern, no matter how insincere the statement had been at the moment, was proof that he was mine. But addiction clouded my mind, destroying everything in its wake.

This was not something sweet, to be savored in scrapbooks and bragged about to friends. It wasn't something that either of us could have ever talked about before hand, planned to the detail until all of the spontaneity of the event melted into a waxy residue like some candlelit fantasy. This was wrong. He knew it, and I knew it. My very existence depended upon whether I could successfully hide what I was from him, and his was put in jeopardy every time we touched by the vampires who would kill him just to get to me. But as his hands worked me over, dipping lower, making me shout, I was certain of only one thing in that moment: the female physique was his instrument. And he played me like a virtuoso.

Blonds, brunettes, redheads. I envied them all. His touch sent more than just chills down my spine and goosebumps to my skin. He sent me reeling out of control, being taunted by the ghosts of girlfriends past. Of one-night stands and quickies in public bathrooms that weren't good enough for him. That weren't me. It wasn't enough, as he looked down at me, eyes hazy and asking for me to tighten my legs around his waist so that we could move into a sitting position that it was my name coming out of his mouth in short heated gasps. I wanted to erase every blond, brunette, and redhead wearing a short skirt and a smile, so that the only two who existed were him and me.

It wasn't the trappings of love that made the thought of him belonging to another so detestable, nor was it virginal mortification at saving something for someone who had spread himself so thinly throughout time. Honestly—and it was ironic that honesty was the first thing that came to my mind when lately, all I had been doing was lying—the main source of my ravenous jealousy was Dean himself. As stated, I should have just been content with what he had given me: his all. But it wasn't really his all in my eyes, if everything he owned didn't belong to me. And I had no idea where this was coming from, because in addition to excess, I had never been one to latch on to another for the sake of being chosen.

The Carolines of the world saw competition in everyone who walked past their line of vision. They undressed mysterious suitors across darkly lit rooms and uncovered their mysteries from the comfort of their lacy white bed sheets, never satisfied with what they had and even more discontent with that which they were. In the morning, they would wait in vain for a call that would never come. Or even worse, they would fall prey to abuse and terror all for the privilege of being able to say that they belonged to someone. Elena was always the chosen one. The girl with the serious boyfriend. Serious enough not to be subjected to slutty stereotypes, but not innocent by any stretch of the imagination either. And then there I stood. Quiet, normal, loyal, selective, tragic, grieving, bitch, witch, powerful, and lost. But the only description that I cared about was power. Dean had power beneath his skin. Whether he knew it or not was not my call, but I felt it in earth shattering waves that forced jealousy and vainglory into a fight for my sanity and pushed me into a state of anger so strong, I bit back my pride and his shoulder and marked his back with my nails.

I wanted that power, simmering just below his surface and every other part that was him. Why I couldn't just enjoy that moment scared me. No, it nearly killed me that even when I should have been living in the moment, even when he had filled me completely, I still felt empty, with the power that I most craved just out of reach. My hips picked up speed, making him dig out my insecurities until it hurt. Until I bled him.

"Shit, Green Eyes," he hissed, gripping my waist so that my movements halted, "ease up a little. Slow down!" I squirmed against him again, frustrated that he was trying to make more out of this than it needed to be. More than I could handle it being. But he wouldn't move. He let the fire scorch my insides with rage. I wanted that power. I wanted him. I wanted to feel in charge of my own emotions. I didn't want to feel so conflicted, so contradictory. My fists connected with his chest, pushing him away, while my lips tugged him back to me. He was covered in bruises.

"Hey! Hey!" He screamed, eyes flashing with warning and just enough danger to excite me, at the same time that his fingers firmly wound around my wavy brown roots, pulling my head back to face him. His other hand still fanned the fire. Still drew circles on the small of my back. I knew that he understood me, because even without words I could see him struggling with the idea of turning this into angry sex.

It was easier that way. We could even hate each other if we wanted to. He could hate me for making him reenter his life of danger and murder, and I could hate him for making me feel…well…for making me feel anything other than numb. Because without the monotony of our previous daily actions, forsaken for our current state of awareness in the other, we were forced to feel all of the mourning that neither of us had allowed ourselves to acknowledge. I wanted this to turn violent. To feel more like the fight that it was. The fight to push each other away. The fight to keep one another close. Yet, he held me to him, not saying a word. Just trailing my jaw line with kisses that landed deep and drugging on my lips as he slowly pressed me back to his twisted sweaty sheets and melted me into a sloppy mess of indifference with no more fight left.

His words were coarse. His kisses burned. And his hands were capable of irreparable damage. But though, I drank him like whiskey, he flowed through me like honey. I'd had sugar before. It came in the form of the typical high school football player with a nice physique and absent parents, and buying into the deceitful wrapping, I would have argued that its taste was just as sweet as the real thing. But candy is cheaper than honey. It's more economical and anyone with a sweet tooth will be satisfied with it. Honey, on the other hand, was an acquired taste. It oozed in his every stroke, slowing me into a nonchalant rhythm. Little things that should have embarrassed me didn't even register in my head. The headboard crashed with each rock of his hips against mine, and I should have blushed at the encouragements coming from the neighbors, but I could barely hear them. My heightened state levitated the bed from its place on the ground and shattered his windows. Surely that should have terrified me. Surely I had to know that if he noticed us sitting a foot into the air, he would have known that I was causing it, and I would have been dead on the spot. Only, sloth, had become my undoing, and nothing mattered anymore, except for the root of all sin: lust.

And maybe in the beginning it had started out differently. Maybe we had spent so much time talking earlier that there was only one thing left standing in the way of us being as close as two people could possibly get. So logically speaking, this was the next step. But lust wasn't logical. All other vices could be argued as precontrived. Greed and Gluttony purposely sought out more pleasures. Envy and Wrath dwelled around every corner looking for a fight. Pride wouldn't leave well enough alone until it got its way. And sloth didn't look for anything at all, but made no attempt to rectify its evil behavior. Lust was different though. It wasn't mental. It was physical; all about close contact, hungry lips, and a budding tension that craved release. Which he was steadily inching me closer to.

His pace slowed down, feeding some competitive need to get me to the finish line first—a prideful goal of his own—and this time, I wasn't afraid to scream his name in unholy yelps.

He pulled all the way out of me until we were only touching, teasing my neck with the tip of his tongue so that I could build up steam while he cooled down. His chuckle reverberated in his chest, "Be patient. I know what I'm doing." Of this I had no doubt. It was no secret that I'd been attracted to him at first sight. His name sent blood to my cheeks, and even the mere hint of us together made me bite my lip in anticipation. Even going as far back as that first night that he'd drove me home, there had been tension. And he knew the effect that he had on me. Still, I hadn't figured out why he had this lascivious effect until those emerald eyes bored into mine, his voice even huskier than usual, and he whispered, "Do you trust me?"

"With my life," I whispered back into the crook of his collarbone. All movement stopped between us at my words; words that were worse than any admission and slipped out with no permission. But there was no doubt to their truth. He was my beautiful boy with the lopsided grin and wicked tongue. The one who always knew how to make me feel like more than just a angst-ridden teenage witch, especially when he connected us again and lit me ablaze until we were both fully blown.

**-NOW-**

The car door gave a definitive slam as I slid across car's black leather interior. There was a sense of finality in that slam that sounded every time I sat in the passenger's side beside him, telling me that this was my life now. That the man beside me was my priority now, and that I needed to close the door to my past; needed to move on. For good.

"Ah, there's my little Charmed One. Now, if you're done playing Quidditch or whatever you little witches do, what do you say we go home and play a few games of our own?" he wriggled his eyebrows in a highly suggestive manner. I was used to the sexual insinuations, the teacher puns, and the references to witches/wizards in literature and popular culture. I was so used to them that his breath on my neck as he whispered the last part in my ear didn't even make my skin crawl anymore. To be completely honest, I felt the way that I had grown to feel around him. The way I always felt around him now: defensive and irritated, yet slightly amused.

"Just shut up and drive, Damon."

"You know, one day Judgie," he gazed down at me, "you're going to stop pretending to be so immune to my charms and sense of style, not to mention my overwhelming sexual prowess, and admit that you don't hate me as much as you want to," I looked into his pale blue eyes, trying unsuccessfully not to crave jaded green ones to take their place. It wasn't fair to him and it wasn't fair to me, but I knew that a part of him would always see Katherine's brown eyes in mine, so I guessed that it was as fair as it ever would be. "But until then, I guess I'll just settle for our daily game of cat and mouse. You know, I do love a good chase."

We needed this. Each other. Needed the normalcy that being together provided, and I couldn't help laughing at the thought: a vampire and a witch only feeling normal together. But it was true. Dean was a constant reminder of how different I was and how impossible we were together. Whereas, with Damon, there was nothing to hide. We both knew exactly where the other stood. He had just as much reason to hate me as I did with him. It was better this way. Even. But I still couldn't help hoping that our relationship would bring Dean back one day to settle the score.

Until then, I'd continue to wait. Pleased with the fact that, by sleeping with a vampire, I had just given him one more way to send me to hell.


	19. Author's Note Sequel exerpt

**A/N: **Happy December everyone. A couple of weeks ago, I promised some of you that I would post an update, giving the link to this story's sequel. And alas, here it is. But before I give it to you, I ask that you read an excerpt of Chapter 5. Its my gift to all of you who have stuck with the story. By the way, there's an author's note at the end as well.

HANG WITH ME

Bonnie's POV

"I'm jealous, Bonnie. I won't try to deny that. I am a jealous, dangerous, maniacal predator, with very few redeemable qualities. I know that. I've embraced that. But you're the first woman to put me first in her life," I opened my mouth to tell him that the only reason I held him so close was to keep him from dragging Mystic Falls to Hell, but he waved me off and continued, "Despite the reason, do you honestly think that I'm going to give that up? That I'm honestly going to give you up?"

I had always known that he was insane. But I had at least thought that he knew me better than this. "Isn't that just great; to be held in such high esteem as someone like, oh say, Katherine. With complements like these, I can see why she wanted to kill you." He staggered back as if he had been slapped. The moment Damon and I had realized that our cohabitation was more than just a temporary convenience, he and I had come to an agreement: nothing was off limits, verbal attacks that turned physical, physical brawls that turned sexual, and sexual activities that gave way to more verbal abuse. It was a never-ending cycle that neither of us could imagine our days without, and nothing was too vicious an assault, except for two topics. And I had just broken my half of the agreement by mentioning one of them.

My hand was aimed and ready to fling him out of the window if he chose to charge me. But he never did. For a second, I actually believed that all my requests for him to control his temper had finally sunk into his brain. However, I soon found out that his tongue was sharper than his fangs could ever hope to be.

"Is that so?" He was calm. Almost smiling. His eyes, on the other hand, were murderous. "And just who would you rather I be?" He circled me now. Slowly, as if I were his prey. "Would you rather I be the one who left you devastated and alone with barely enough strength to stagger home?" My breath caught in my throat and he chuckled, taking my surprise as a sign to keep going, "Would you prefer that I write you a note describing how much I hate you; that you could read over and over until you slowly lost the will to live and decided to end it all by drowning in your bath?" His cruelty backed me against the wall way before his body made contact with mine. I couldn't look at him, though. My eyes wouldn't leave the loose floor board near the window. It was where I kept Dean's letter, despite the fact that I had memorized every word. Damon's hand cupped my throat in a strong but strangely comfortable grip. His lips were to my ear. "Would you rather I be so repulsed by what you are that I purposefully choose the monsters in the night over what we had?" The lump in my throat pushed at his hand, but he still didn't let up. "Would you rather I be him?"

Listening to everything that Damon had said and knowing that it had all been true would make one hate them both. Dean for leaving in the first place, and Damon for relishing in the pain of that loss. But I couldn't hate either of them. Dean did the only thing he knew how: run, and Damon was doing what Damon did best: attacking the person who had betrayed him the most. We had had a deal, and I stabbed him in the back. Now, he was determined to press his body to mine until that knife pierced through him and punctured my own heart. Still, the real reason that I couldn't hate Damon was because the only cause for his spite was his growing affection for me, not his lingering love for Katherine. And yet, as he stared at me with those startling cerulean eyes that made most girls melt, I knew that if I'd answered his question, "Would you rather I be him?" truthfully, he would have crumbled. He deserved every bit of physical pain that the Heavens could dole out to him. But even I had my limits on cruel and unusual punishment. So, I shook my head no, even as my head screamed "Yes! Yes I would!"

**A/N: **Like what you just read, then read it in the sequel, titled _A Million to One. _It's under the stories in my profile. Enjoy


	20. Recent News

Hey all. I've been writing a YA novel (because besides Fan fiction I feel that that's where I excel) since I was seventeen (almost 8 years) and it has since turned into this amazingly complex (I hope) epic trilogy. Unfortunately, it's turned so complex, that it's spinning out of control (more on that later). So to give my mind a break, I've been focusing on other stories.

Anyway, I posted a story a while back called Purple Panties. It was an adult-themed story featuring two young teenagers. It was only supposed to be a one-shot but I saw so much promise that I made it into another teen novel that I'm writing called Keeper of the Box. It's supposed to be somewhat of a modern day sequel to the Pandora's Box myth in Greek mythology.

Well, getting back on track, I really loved writing A Million Ways to Send Me to Hell so much. So I've decided to somehow rework many (if not most) of the events in A Million Ways into Keeper of the Box, including how the characters act, talk, and address each other (including Dean's nickname for Bonnie, but changing it to Bright Eyes and changing all the character's looks and names).

So, if you ever see a book in your local bookstores called Keeper of the Box and pick it up, only to discover that it has many of the same scenes as a Million Ways, don't accuse the author of plagiarizing, because the author is me going under a different pen name.

I hope this doesn't upset the readers of that story, or ruin the story for anyone, because I don't mean to. However, as many people as there are who read fan fiction (and have read that story) there are even more that don't. And while I appreciate you guys with everything I have, I want to expand to a large audience.

I hope you all understand. Thanks.

Love,

Billi.


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